Walk with me on stony hillsides
Walk with me in crags of schist,
Walk amongst Blue Borich carpet
Walk in lands of silver mist.
Feel the ancient history seeping
From the veins of shining stone,
Feel the company of Goblins
When you tread these paths alone.
Granite lattice work in marble
Layered from the depths of time,
Beauty and mystique and marvel
Walk with fear and awe, as mine.
Humble in these rugged mountains
Privileged to behold the scene,
I take my leave regretfully
For grandeur lives from whence I've been*.

Marshalg
Strolling through the ancient Schist in the bold, remote, magnificence of Central Otago.
10 September 2012

Fashion designer Dame Trelise Cooper is holding her first show in Wanaka to help raise funds for the town's planned hospice.

The September 30 Theatre of Fashion event is being organised by Wanaka fashion store Escape Clothing owner Lucy Lucas and the Upper Clutha Hospice Trust and organisers hope to raise up to $30,000.

Trust fundraiser Bev Rudkin said the show was "such a coup for Wanaka".

Wanaka hasn't had anything like this before and we know Theatre of Fashion will be an exciting event."

The event will be held at the McRae family's Glendhu Station Woolshed and will showcase the Trelise Cooper Summer 2015/16 collection. It will also feature three Trelise Cooper 1950s-inspired installations.

The event includes an auction of donated items, with all proceeds going to the Upper Clutha Hospice Trust.


photo:www.marieaustralia.com/evening-dresses
Lucas lost her mother to cancer two years ago and says the hospice facility is especially important for the local community.

At the moment, Wanaka cancer patients and their families travel either to Clyde's Dunstan Hospital or Dunedin Hospital for hospice care.

The Upper Clutha Hospice Trust will be a tenant in the Presbyterian Support Otago and Mt Aspiring Retirement Village's proposed aged care/dementia facility on Cardrona Valley Road. Construction is scheduled later this year.

The trust is raising capital and operating costs for its patient rooms within the larger facility.

Lucas stocks Trelise Cooper in her shop and approached Dame Trelise to see if she was interested in helping the trust.

"Dame Trelise is incredibly generous with her time. She does a lot for community causes. Wanaka is so lucky to have her agree to holding this event, and for her to attend is even better. Guests are in for a treat. Trelise Cooper shows are always fantastic, with plenty of 'wow' factor," Lucas said.

Dame Trelise said she was only too happy to help: "Giving back to the community is something I have always believed in. It means a lot to me that my passion and the work that I do can be put towards something that really makes a difference . . . I have some very loyal customers in the South Island who have supported my label right from the beginning, and it feels great to be able to bring an event like this to them."

FAST FACTS

What: Theatre of Fashion inaugural show

When: 6.30pm, Wednesday September 30, 2015

Where: Glendhu Station Woolshed, Glendhu Bay

Cost: $65 per person or $75 for front row seats. Tickets from Escape Clothing, Ardmore Street, Wanaka, or the Upper Clutha Hospice Shop, Ballantyne Road. All proceeds to the Upper Clutha Hospice Trust.

- The Mirror

read more:www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses

Preparations are gearing up for the iD Dunedin Fashion Show, which this year opens with a tribute to Australasian style on Anzac weekend.

The 120m-long platform of Dunedin's railway station is again the venue for shows on April 24 and 25, which are preceded by the iD International Emerging Designer Awards on Thursday night at the Town Hall.

Saturday night is sold out and about 100 tickets are still available to Friday's show, organisers say.

Labels Carlson, Mild-Red and NOM*d, brands synonymous with Dunedin fashion, were in the original show in a local bar in 2000 and they're still show stalwarts.

Company of Strangers, Charmaine Reveley, DADA Vintage, Storm, Perriam, Deval, GG (from Shanghai), Liann Bellis, BEATS clothing, Jason Lingard and Jane Sutherland are also strutting their stuff this year.

The shows open with a section titled Together Alone, Revisited, put together by Doris De Pont, featuring garments by four New Zealand and three Australian designers shown at an exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria in 2009.

International guest judge Doris Raymond, the star of documentary series LA Frockstars, is also bringing some garments with her for the show.

The owner of vintage emporium The Way We Wore has a fabulous collection of outfits and she will talk about them at an event in the city on Friday.

Six fashion graduate designers from the Otago Polytechnic School of Design will also show their collections in the shows on Friday and Saturday night.

Garments made by the winner of the emerging designer awards are also in the show.

The finalists were selected from nearly 100 entries from seven countries and 14 fashion schools.

There's a strong showing from Australian schools, especially from Sydney, says judge Tanya Carlson.Read more here:www.marieaustralia.com/evening-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/short-formal-dresses

This year’s WoolOn Creative Fashion event will feature some "exciting" new elements, but they are under wraps for now, organisers say.

The event, which used to be held annually in October in conjunction with the Alexandra Blossom Festival, last year was separated from the festival to become a separate entity.

No WoolOn was held last year and this year’s event had a new date, May 26-27, WoolOn chairwoman Clair Higginson said.

A final call for entries was being made this week, and the closing date for entry forms had been extended by a week, until March 24, Ms Higginson said. Designers then had another month to complete the garments, which had to be handed in by April 27.

Ms Higginson said this year’s WoolOn would be held in a new "industrial-style" venue in Alexandra, but organisers could not yet say where as consents were not in place.

Other "exciting" new elements were being added to the event, but they were also being kept under wraps.

"We’re trying to make better connections between the wool on the farm and the wool on the fashion catwalk. But just how we will do that is going to be a surprise."

Rural Women New Zealand was the new naming sponsor of the event and WoolOn organisers were excited about the partnership, believing it would bring extra focus to the raw product

the WoolOn garments were created from.All garments must be at least 75% wool and there are eight categories in the event, as well as an Under 23 Emerging Designer Award.

The event will still feature a Friday night "First Look" event with a "fashion show feel", and a Saturday gala evening, when winners will be announced.

This year’s judges are Deirdre Mackenzie, of Tauranga, who was one of the people to establish WoolOn in its present format; Simon Swale, a design lecturer at the Otago Polytechnic, in Dunedin; and designer Jaimee Smith, of Dunedin, who has her own fashion label, "Florence".Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/bridesmaid-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/red-carpet-celebrity-dresses

Thomas, it’s part of life’s strange design
that these fresh days
of your green bud years
will be lost to your conscious memory.
You enjoy each laugh, each bath, each hug, each kiss,
each new discovery of taste or touch
and then it evaporates into past tense.
Amidst the daily demands of the ordinary,
your mother and I
try to cage that steam.

For two weeks prior to your birthday,
we drive around Canterbury, Otago and Southland
connecting the dots of your mother’s heritage.
The sky is big down here, Thomas,
and the stars burn with diamond clarity
in its grape-dark canvas.

You keep your ghosts well hidden
Such an important place you’ve been
All the histories you helped in the making
Their secrets you hold unseen

Your baronial beauty and grandeur
Are what entrances and enslaves
Your image, which you don’t mind sharing,
Has them coming here in waves

You gave students a home to protest
And glory to those racing your strikes
You’re a place for staff to feel proud of
Even your twitter feed got likes

Your loyal chimes keep us moving
They’re heard through the campus widely
Otago wouldn’t be the same without them
So thank you Summertime Sidey

You fought off threats of demolition
And dared us to be wise
Became a symbol of higher learning
And helped make excellence our prize.

The Irish went to New Zealand
in search for gold at Arrow-town
where a river of the same name
glistened with a similar sheen
as one of Shakespeare's caskets
in The Merchant of Venice.

Portia ended up marrying Antonio,
if it had been set in Central Otago
she might well have met a Paddy, but,
not long after they arrived, the precious
metal disappeared.

One of them opened a bakery in
Cromwell, a nearby town called after
Oliver, Irelands most hated Englishman
before Charles Trevelayan.

https://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/was-this-the-most-wicked-man-in-irish-history-26367449.html

He named it " Crumbwell's Bakery ".

Where hippy's go,
prosperity follows.

And indeed, this has
been the case worldwide.

They were first into West
Cork, Otago in New Zealand.

Anywhere that was barren,
became nice, sought after.

It was the same with bread,
they pioneered the old recipes.

Today, we have latter day hippies
educating us about Organic Flour.

The cult of bread is not new, just
forgotten. A buttered cult please!