Ockham Lecture: Dressing Aotearoa Now with Doris de Pont

5.30pm doors and drinks
6pm talk starts

Doris introduces her lecture: “How we clothe and adorn our bodies mediates the space between our inner world and the world outside – a daily choice about what we put on show.

In this lecture, I explore the idea that in Aotearoa we are increasingly privileging our geographic location over our colonial history. Through a series of examples, the talk traces how diverse threads from our past are being woven together, producing a new cloth from which Aotearoa is dressing itself today.”

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Doris de Pont ONZM designed many garments over her four decades of professional fashion-making, and all reflect a distinctive, individual aesthetic. Yet alongside that individualism, her experiences in fashion were often intensely collaborative.

Her interest in the creativity of others, and her ability to work collectively, underpins her founding of the New Zealand Fashion Museum and her continued championing of New Zealand fashion. Both of her fashion careers are connected through her ongoing exploration of the ways clothing can signify or express identity and belonging.

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The Ockham Lecture series is an annual programme of lectures and panel discussions across different themes that critically engage with craft, design and architecture. This programme is supported by Objectspace's Lead Partner Ockham Residential.

Images:
Header: Installation view, Warwick Freeman: Hook Hand Heart Star, Objectspace, 29 Nov–8 Mar 2026, photograph by Sam Hartnett
Above: Doris de Pont, photograph by Felix Jackson

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