Dark and moody - celebrating 40 years of fashion with NOM*d

Several years ago, Margi Robertson, the founder and designer behind cult Dunedin brand NOM*d, had an idea to create skirts from vintage scarves.

“We had to trail op shops between Invercargill and Christchurch whenever we were doing a trip and we still didn’t get enough that I liked,” Robertson told RNZ's Culture 101.

“I ended up going to the market when I was in Paris and getting some scarves from there to bring back and make these skirts.”

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The idea wasn’t financially viable to continue. Still, it showcases the style and principles of a brand that has shown at London Fashion Week and been worn by fashion icons such as singer Rihanna.

It's been almost 40 years since Robertson founded NOM*d. To mark the occasion, a retrospective exhibition at Dunedin Public Art Gallery called This is NOM*d opens next Saturday.

The brand is known for its dark aesthetic, vintage and avant-garde style and the exhibition will celebrate this with 20 archival looks showcasing NOM*d's evolution and its legendary influence on New Zealand fashion. The show also highlights the label's deep ties with artists, musicians and filmmakers.

Robertson's love for fashion and creative repurposing started when she learned to sew from her mother as a teenager.

“The home sewing thing, your mother teaching appropriate patterns, doing some or applying some unique ideas to what you were making so it wasn’t the garment that everyone else at high school was making.

“So maybe that whole conceptual side came from that in my upbringing.”

Robertson loved op shopping and obsessed over pinstripe suits. Her mother helped her repurpose a men’s brown pinstripe suit to fit her.

It was the clothing store Plume that came first, more than a decade before Robertson launched NOM*d in 1986. The clothing line complemented the aesthetic of what Robertson was already selling in the store, including Zambesi, the fashion line founded by Robertson’s sister Liz Findlay.

NOM*d was founded on eight design tactics, an international design movement known as conceptual fashion. Those tactics include vintage, reappropriation, multipurpose garments and anti-consumerism.

“We merged the conceptual ideas and wearable saleable items. That’s what gives us NOM*d and the rest is history, really.”

Black is a major colour on the NOM*d palette. Robertson incorporated more colours before a trip to Japan changed that through inspiration from designers like Yohji Yamamoto and COMME des GARÇONS.

“...there is something serene about black and when you think of that whole Japanese culture, it is very quiet.

“They are not yelling at you and it is really about the shape and architecture of the garment rather than screaming at you and I actually indulge in that.”

Robertson was forced to expand a focus on knits and woven original pieces when NOM*d showcased at London Fashion Week in 1999. A person on the brand’s design team came up with the idea of a reworked bowling skirt - a below the knee skirt with wide pleats typically seen on the lawn bowls green. It fit with the Japanese uniform aesthetic that is one size fits all like the kimono that Robertson has found earlier inspiration in.

“Again, [the skirts] were sort of a one-size-fits-all item and they were just made out of white nylon. It was something relatively easy for us to produce that complimented the knit wear and it was quite modern and it was absolutely unique to our brand.”

Despite the brand’s success in New Zealand and overseas, Robertson has resisted moving to a large city centre like Auckland. She also built the business without loans and investors and owns the business outright, a rarity for its reputation and scale.

“I actually quite like that Dunedin has a sort of dark subculture vibes that are quite prevalent in society today especially in New Zealand...”