Fashion fans filled every spot at New Zealand Fashion Museum’s debut Walk the Walk Wellington Fashion Tour as part of the Wellington Heritage Festival. Now NZFM hopes to turn it into a podcast and self-directed walk.
The fully booked inaugural Walk the Walk Wellington Fashion Tour on October 18 and 19, 2025, proved to be a hit – and perfectly at home in Wellington, the walkable city.
As the former fashion editor of The Dominion Post, I once walked these same streets daily, visiting designers in their workrooms and borrowing garments from local boutiques. It was a joy to share some of that insider knowledge with NZFM founder Doris de Pont and walk co-researcher Kelly Dix (pictured above, right and left respectively) during the project’s early stages. What surprised me most, though, was discovering the layers of fashion history hidden in plain sight – etched into the city’s facades, waiting for those who take the time to look up.
“It’s a nice way to get people to look up,” says de Pont. “For example, the original Hallensteins Brothers on [132] Cuba St is now a pasta place but if you look up you’ll see the HB façade.
“One of the important things we wanted to communicate was that things used to be made here and you had makers in the middle of town and we are celebrating places where that still happens too like Mandatory menswear.”
A working atelier, Mandatory (21 Ghuznee St) is regarded for its 1980’s standards of New Zealand Made make. Visitors to the store can observe the team busy at work bench cutting and making garments.
Manisha and Lucia at the cutting table at Mandatory menswear on Wellington’s Ghuznee St.
Kelly Dix and co-researcher Jamie Metzger spent months delving into the capital city Pōneke / Wellington.
Dix developed the existing Auckland walks with de Pont when she worked for NZFM in Auckland. Now Wellington-based, she jumped at the chance to research and write the script for the Wellington walking tour.
Dix now works at the National Library in Wellington and researched the walk in her weekends which also involved walking the streets for hours to see if the original buildings still stood.
“It was important to choose stops that could tell the story of fashion in Aotearoa, and an original building helps to tell that story,” says Dix.
Her favourite discovery was learning that designer Kathleen Fuller of Minerva Frocks once worked from the Imperial Buildings (41-47 Dixon Street) – a grand, if slightly timeworn, landmark. “I have always noticed it and never knew that she worked from there!” says Dix.
The Imperial Buildings on Dixon St where designer Kathleen Fuller of Minerva Frocks based herself in Wellington.
Connecting with the whenua histories of Te Whanganui a Tara was the most interesting aspect for Metzger who is the senior curator Māori at Wheako Pōneke.
“Gaining a deeper understanding of how the landscape has transformed over time – through both natural processes and the impacts of colonisation – was very grounding. Learning about significant sites of occupation, awa, pā, and areas of flax cultivation helped me feel more connected to the city and added layers of history, whakapapa and another dimension to the tour,” says Metzger.
The story of drag icon Carmen Rupe (1936–2011) was also celebrated on the walk at a Cuba Street crossing, where her silhouette replaces the usual “green man” that signals it’s safe to cross.
Four sets of pedestrian lights along Cuba Street feature Carmen’s figure – installed in August 2016 to mark the 30th anniversary of the Homosexual Law Reform Act.
Carmen’s crossing on Cuba St, Wellington. Photography WellingtonNZ
“Carmen is a really important Wellington and New Zealand story,” says de Pont. “She was prosecuted for wearing women’s clothing in public and took her case to court – where the judge ruled in her favour, saying people can wear whatever they like. After that, she never wore men’s clothing again.”
The Wellington walk was made possible by a Wellington City Council (Arts and Culture Fund) grant. During the research phase The National Library was a huge help, especially the street directories and phone books as well as the photographs on DigitalNZ.org that could help identify the location of a building and show what it looked like at various times in history.
Josephine Brodie modelling the new sack look fashion to interested passers-by outside James smith Ltd store, Manners Street, Wellington in 1957. Photograph taken for the Evening Post newspaper of Wellington by an unidentified staff photographer. National Library collection.
In its current format the walks kicks off at Old Bank Shopping Arcade, cnr Willis Street and Lambton Quay and finishes at the Hannahs building in Leeds St and takes approximately 90 minutes. It covers Te Aro Pā and the demise of harakeke, department store Kirkcaldie & Stains, Press House home of The Evening Post’s ‘Flair’ (incidentally my first official paid fashion writing job), Unity Collection, Starfish, C Smith Drapers and House of Raymonde, Ziggurat and more.
“We hope to find a place for this online alongside our self-directed Auckland walks,” says de Pont.
