Adults don't get to dress up often and make-believe. During the Art Deco festival in Napier--the Art Deco Capital of the WORLD--40,000 visitors from around NZ and overseas all pretended that we were back in the era of the flapper, black-and-white TV, jazzy music, the Charleston, and the mafia. There were fighter jets and biplanes putting on aerial shows, a parade consisting only of cars made before 1950, and people in all manner and form of costume. Nurses, sailors, rich women in furs, soldiers, men with canes and suspenders, and many, many flappers all walked around like it was the most natural thing in the world to be strolling about on a summer day by the seaside.
About 70% of the people in town were in costume. There were some very authentic-looking dresses and hats that seemed to be the "real deal", and plenty of modern interpretations of the Art Deco style. I'd been shopping for months for a few outfits for Mac and me, and managed to buy almost everything second-hand, but only the hats, gloves, and purses were actually vintage. Buying a vintage dress in NZ is very difficult due to this festival and the resulting fact that all the great stuff gets snatched up immediately.
What makes Napier the Art Deco Capital of the World is not that they have the most impressive Art Deco architecture, but that they have the most. A 1931 earthquake destroyed the town and when it rebuilt, everything was built in the popular style of the time. Now, even new architecture often follows the theme. And, the people are passionate about Deco! It shows in the cars they drive, their old-fashioned bicycles, and their authentic outfits. On Friday, every kid at the local primary school was dressed in Deco--precious! It's cool to see everyone take it so seriously for a weekend. We took a tour in a vintage car and were able to visit the best Deco buildings (above) around town and then we joined a progressive dinner, going to three different restaurants. Even the movie theaters were playing old films, and we went to see Flying Down to Rio, a 1933 film with Fred Astaire. (I highly recommend this film for its amazing aerial stunt scenes--hilarious!)
With temps in the 80s, we were pretty wiped by the afternoon and went swimming at a local beach. The sand this Napier beach was salt-and-pepper (volcanic & shell/limestone combo), making me wonder again at how special and different NZ is.
A fab weekend!
A fab weekend!