Celebrating the achievements of New Zealand fashion industry leader Gus Fisher, who headed the House of El Jay in New Zealand for almost 50 years, this exhibition has been curated by the acclaimed Auckland designer Doris de Pont.

Celebrating the achievements of New Zealand fashion industry leader Gus Fisher, who headed the House of El Jay in New Zealand for almost 50 years, this exhibition has been curated by the acclaimed Auckland designer Doris de Pont.

Gus Fisher’s generous support of the arts has been recognised with his recent Arts Foundation of New Zealand Award for Patronage, but his role in developing the fashion industry in New Zealand is less well-known today.

He contributed to broadening the New Zealand fashion perspective by looking to the couture of Paris, interpreting it and making his own version of European style available to women here. Travelling to Paris every year for the fashion shows, he saw first hand the new designs and fabrics which led to a keen awareness of the latest trends. The relationships he established with Parisian couturiers led to El Jay becoming the New Zealand licensee for Christian Dior, making Gus Fisher a world pioneer in gaining the exclusive right to manufacture and sell Dior originals in the New Zealand market.

Curator Doris de Pont

Born in New Zealand to Dutch parents, curator Doris de Pont is a recent graduate of The University of Auckland’s Museum and Cultural Heritage postgraduate programme. Living in Holland from 1977-1984, she began designing clothes as part of a fashion collective in The Hague.

Returning to New Zealand, she catapulted to national fame by winning the Benson and Hedges Fashion Award with her outfit inspired by Austrian architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser’s flag for New Zealand. Her DNA label featured at Australian Fashion Week for the first time in 2001, and she is now represented in the collections of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Auckland Institute and Museum and National Gallery of Victoria. In 2009 Doris de Pont was chosen as one of four local fashion houses to represent New Zealand fashion in “Together Alone: Australian and New Zealand Fashion” at the Ian Potter Centre.