Eden Hore, a Naseby farmer, displayed 276 fashion items, including accessories, at his property, Glenshee Park, near Naseby, from 1975.
The collection is regarded as the largest private collection of 1970s to early 1980s haute couture in the southern hemisphere. It included garments from leading fashion designers of the time as well as local designers such as Pat Hewitt, of Alexandra, and many were made from wool, suede or leather.
Eden Hore died in 1997 at the age of 78 and bequeathed the garments to his nephew, John Steele and his wife, Margaret.
The couple lived at Glenshee until last year, when ill health prompted them to sell the farm. No longer able to manage the collection, they offered it to the Central Otago District Council in the hope it would remain intact and be displayed somewhere in the Maniototo.
The council bought the collection for $40,000 in August. It has been insured for $92,750.
A business plan is being drawn up for the collection, which has been photographed and catalogued and is housed in a temperature-controlled facility at Central Stories Museum in Alexandra.
Council community services manager Anne Pullar said a group of people spent eight days packing up the garments, photographing and cataloguing them. A collection management policy would take between 18 months and two years to prepare and finding an appropriate home for the display could also take that long.
Central Stories is at present displaying four garments from Eden Hore's collection as part of its ''Wool Away'' exhibition, focusing on the history of sheep and stations in Central Otago. The exhibition, in association with another, ''Cover Up'', by Touch Yarns, runs until May 4.
The garments on display, by New Zealand designers Beverley Horne, June Mercer and Pauline Kingston, are some of the first pieces collected by Eden Hore and are all made from wool that has been hand-spun.
The garments are being displayed in a fully controlled environment within Central Stories, which, according to the facility's general manager, Rachael Welfare, ''is equipped to display textiles as we have the correct temperature, lighting and dust levels''.
