A carefully curated collection of high-end fashion apparel is now on show at Toitū.
Fashionable farmer Eden Hore’s clothing collection is on display in the "Eden in Dunedin" exhibition.
The exhibition — as well as a book about the collection, Central Otago Couture: The Eden Hore Collection — were launched as part of the opening event for iD Dunedin Fashion Week at the museum last week.
The book was co-authored by dress historian Dr Jane Malthus and Te Papa New Zealand Histories and Cultures senior curator Claire Regnault.
Dr Malthus said the pair started talking about writing the book in 2023, but had been researching the collection for years.
She said she was interested in it because "it’s not your usual everyday kind of story".
Ms Regnault said Mr Hore was very strategic with his collection because he wanted to bring people to Central Otago.
Rural tourism was becoming popular in the 1970s and was bringing more money to the area, so Mr Hore decided to add a makeshift museum with more than 220 high-end fashion dresses in an old tractor shed.
The attraction was an addition to the safari tours he offered at Glenshee Station in the tussocked hills of the Maniototo.
There was something for everyone to do at the station, Ms Regnault said.
"I always think of Glenshee as a strange little oasis of oddness in the middle of Central Otago where you could sort of just slip into this fantasy world."
Mr Hore’s collection included mainly New Zealand-designed garments from the 1970s through to the late 1990s.
