Zambesi style
Innovation
The commission was new ground for Zambesi; the first time it had been involved in creating a corporate uniform. To secure the commission, Zambesi had to pitch for the job along with five other design houses. Elizabeth Findlay and her team worked up a series of sketches of how they saw the uniforms. To make their pitch, these sketches of male and female figures were drawn into groups of crew, ground staff and management.
Elisabeth Findlay says the presentation was "pretty much our idea of how the design should appear."
"We were just showing off what we thought would be right."
Uniforms are primarily concerned more with comfort and maintenance than glamour and display. While this is true enough, a uniform is far more than simply clothing worn at work. A uniform identifies its wearer with an organisation and conveys an image about that organisation. A uniform can make people feel proud of their work and foster espirit de corps. Uniforms also convey messages. Air New Zealand management wanted the new uniforms to say 'New Zealand' to their customers and potential customers. They wanted the uniforms to reflect New Zealander's strong pride, sense of place and attachment to their country. They wanted the uniforms to convey the notions of green tranquility and restfulness. And they wanted this message conveyed with style, flair and clarity. It went without saying they also wanted cost-effective comfort, durability and ease-of-maintenance.
Computers have changed fashion design and will transform it further. But until they are programmed for creativity, art, magic, inspiration and serendipity, computers will never come within a stone's throw of 'doing fashion', much less convey the sort of messages Air New Zealand management had in mind. While computers and other technologies can help turn ideas into "things", they can't in themselves give us those ideas; or manage the conversion of ideas into objects for that matter. Fashion design is a complex and subtle process that will always be closer to art than to science. Many of the early stages of the process may occur unconsciously. All design is bound by culture and informed by visual memory. Ideas, details, historical and cultural references and memories all combine in the designers mind to narrow the range of design options available as a starting point. Because designers nearly always devise new combinations of familiar elements to accomplish novel results, links to known elements are inevitably present. But the inevitability of the old in the new is no check to originality. Part of the visual memory and culture tapped by the Zambesi designers referred to the gloriously stylish days of air travel, when airlines such as TEAL, BOAC and Continental ruled supreme.
Elisabeth Findlay grew up in Dunedin and remembers air hostesses turning heads on Princes Street, so exotic and glamorous were they considered. Elisabeth wanted to recapture some of this glamour. In her initial sketches, she started with the silhouettes of the outfits.
"I just sat down and thought about how I would like the silhouette for the female crew to be. Why start with silhouette? Because I wanted the females to look like females a little bit more. More glamorous I guess. But not in a Hollywood sort of a way, a little bit more feminine, not so corporate. I didn't want them to look like they worked in a bank."
