From left to right: One of Guo Pei’s garments, on display at Auckland Art Gallery, Rihanna’s gown at the 2015 Met Gala, also on display at Auckland Art Gallery and Guo Pei herself. (Image DesignL Tina Tiller)
From left to right: One of Guo Pei’s garments, on display at Auckland Art Gallery, Rihanna’s gown at the 2015 Met Gala, also on display at Auckland Art Gallery and Guo Pei herself. (Image DesignL Tina Tiller)

Pop CultureDecember 21, 2023

Guo Pei stuns at the Auckland Art Gallery

From left to right: One of Guo Pei’s garments, on display at Auckland Art Gallery, Rihanna’s gown at the 2015 Met Gala, also on display at Auckland Art Gallery and Guo Pei herself. (Image DesignL Tina Tiller)
From left to right: One of Guo Pei’s garments, on display at Auckland Art Gallery, Rihanna’s gown at the 2015 Met Gala, also on display at Auckland Art Gallery and Guo Pei herself. (Image DesignL Tina Tiller)

After its huge success in San Francisco, China’s most famous fashion designer exhibits more than 60 of her works at the Auckland Art Gallery. Sam Brooks goes along to the exhibition and responds to it.

Before the tiresome debate “are video games art?”, there was the equally tiresome debate “is fashion art?”. While that debate resolved in favour of fashion, there is still a lingering stigma from some parts of society about the validity of clothing as fine art. Can something functional be art? On the other end of the spectrum, can something frivolous be art? The answer is, of course, yes, but it’s not often that you see the form vaunted in our largest city’s namesake art gallery.

Guo Pei: Fashion, Art, Fantasy, which opened earlier this month at Auckland Art Gallery, doesn’t put to rest that debate (that’s long over) but it does an excellent job of nudging even the skeptic towards a conclusion of “duh, obviously”. The exhibition, coming from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in collaboration with the Asian Couture Foundation, displays 60 of the Chinese designer’s works (which include not just garments, but fantastic headpieces, accessories and shoes! The shoes!). And yes, it includes the reason you’ve probably heard of Guo Pei in the first place: the dress Rihanna wore to the Met Gala in 2015. 

It’s a real coup for the Auckland Art Gallery, especially given the exhibition’s wild success back in San Francisco. Not only is it commercial – Guo Pei is hardly a household name, but is one of the better known living fashion designers who isn’t also a celebrity in her own right – it’s a rare chance to see couture fashion in the flesh. Or fabric, as it may be.

Guo Pei’s concept drawings, on display at the Auckland Art Gallery.

Fashion, Art, Fantasy is, right from the jump, overwhelming. I doubt there are more Swarovski crystals per metre anywhere else in the world right now. Most people go their entire lives without seeing one haute couture gown in person, let alone 60 of them. My most earnest recommendation for seeing this exhibition is to take a gamble on when it is going to be quiet – the Tuesday morning before Christmas was not quiet, so good luck – and allow yourself at least a minute to take in each gown and their details. (And maybe another minute to take in the shoes, especially in the Magic and Dreams part of the exhibition. Pei’s gowns defy the bounds of craftsmanship, but her shoes defy the bounds of humanity, or at least human perambulation.)

It’s perhaps telling that the part of the exhibition that I enjoyed, or hung around, the most, were the gowns that look the most like they could actually be worn. Of course, most of these gowns are designed for proportions that are runway tall and mannequin thin, and while practicality (or function!) is not the point of haute couture, it does make you realise the specific body that these gowns are designed for.

Other parts of the exhibit remind you of the haunting beauty of a garment that sits just right. Tucked away in a little corner, which is perhaps my favourite part of the entire gallery, is a room with just one gown. It’s perhaps the least elaborate of the gowns in the exhibition (from the L’Architecture, Fall Winter 18-19 Collection), a simple black number, albeit with an opening at the back that resembles a Victorian window, and a mask. It struck me because I could imagine running into the person wearing it – probably a widow at her fourth husband’s funeral. All of Guo Pei’s works feel like the makings of a real human artist (and many artists beyond just her as the designer), but the exhibition is at its best when you can imagine the human who might meet her art halfway.

Guo Pei’s L’Architecture Collection from the Fall/Winter 2018-19 season, on display at Auckland Art Gallery.

This does, however, raise the question of what is lost when fashion is exhibited like this. There’s a very good reason why fashion shows exist – and indeed, it’s a good move that the exhibition includes a video of the runway for Pei’s Spring/Summer collection from 2017 – and it’s because fashion doesn’t exist, in the real world, in stillness. It exists in motion. While seeing these gowns allows the viewer to slowly take in every intricacy, and there are obvious logistical issues in including a human element in the exhibition, it often feels like looking at a film on pause, rather than in motion, as it should be seen.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in the exhibition’s most famous dress: the “Yellow Queen” from Pei’s One Thousand and Two Nights collection of 2009/10. It’s also known as “the Rihanna Met Gala dress” (an impressive moniker, given the star’s famously high quality showings at the Met Gala), the “Guo Pei dress” (equally impressive, given the excellence of Pei’s output) or the “omelette dress” (because that’s what it looks like). Seeing the dress, arguably the most famous piece of modern visual art – fight me – is breathtaking. Less so is the chance to take your photo in front of it, as I shamelessly did, as did many of the attendees both times I went to the exhibition. Despite the garment’s construction, something feels missing.

An integral part of fashion, and fashion as art, is the person wearing it. The yellow dress is undoubtedly one of the most impressive bits of craftsmanship I’ve ever seen in person (famously 50,000 hours, across two years were spent on its construction, and it’s not even the garment with the most hours credited to it). But without someone like Rihanna proving that if wearing clothes is not a skill, it’s definitely a gift, it feels remote. Not even the staging of the garment, with the massive train pouring over several stairs, can give the illusion of it being worn. In a gallery, it’s a piece of art. On a red carpet, being worn by one of the most famous women in the world, it becomes a collaboration between artists. One is more powerful to take in than the other.

As I left the exhibition, a man walked by me wearing a shirt emblazoned with “Fake News Editor”. For some, fashion truly is just function, and that’s all it needs to be. For the rest of us, and thankfully shown by this exhibition, it’s art. Worthy of more than just observation, but engagement and interrogation.

Guo Pei: Fashion, Art, Fantasy runs until May 2, 2024 at the Auckland Art Gallery.

Keep going!
Anchor Me in the middle of your deep blue sea, Chris Warner (Photo: Screengrab / Design: Tina Tiller)
Anchor Me in the middle of your deep blue sea, Chris Warner (Photo: Screengrab / Design: Tina Tiller)

Pop CultureDecember 21, 2023

Ten years on, Chris Warner singing ‘Anchor Me’ is still an absolute banger

Anchor Me in the middle of your deep blue sea, Chris Warner (Photo: Screengrab / Design: Tina Tiller)
Anchor Me in the middle of your deep blue sea, Chris Warner (Photo: Screengrab / Design: Tina Tiller)

In 2013, Chris Warner sang ‘Anchor Me’ on national television. Was this the best Shortland Street cliffhanger ever? Tara Ward thinks so. 

Ten years ago, the sun set at Piha Beach as a beautiful blonde man strummed his guitar. He began to sing, out loud. The song? ‘Anchor Me’. The mood? Incredible.  

It’s December 2013 and Chris Warner is sitting on his deck in Piha, playing his guitar. Behind him is the golden light of a west coast sunset, beside him his closest friends and colleagues. As Chris’s heart soars in this tranquil moment of togetherness, so does his voice. He begins to sing ‘Anchor Me’, the award-winning song by The Mutton Birds, calling everyone around him to the middle of his deep blue sea. His friends and family smile warmly at each other, joining in on the chorus with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Grace Kwan is so moved that she even starts to sway, ever so slightly. 

Nobody knows there’s a ticking bomb under that deck. As the storm clouds roll, all they’re thinking about is Anchor Me. 



One decade later, some of us are still thinking about Anchor Me. Though that musical scene lasted only a few precious seconds, it created a Shortland Street cliffhanger like no other. Over the past 31 years, New Zealand’s longest running drama has delivered unforgettable Christmas finales filled with plane crashes, truck crashes, shootings and murders, but this quiet moment rises above all that tragedy and heartbreak. Each cliffhanger strives to be bigger and better than those before, but nothing beats the simple joy of watching Chris Warner sing ‘Anchor Me’ as the sun slowly sets on 2013. 

Producer and director Simon Bennett worked on Shortland Street for 19 years, and oversaw the 2013 cliffhanger. He remembers it as one of the most significant episodes that he was involved with on the show, and he’s thrilled that a “random decision in the heat of the moment” to make Dr Love sing in public has endured in the public consciousness for so many years. 

Galvin had already danced and rapped on Shortland Street, but viewers had never heard him sing. Bennett, however, had worked with Galvin in musical productions like Blue Sky Boys and Ken Hill’s Phantom of the Opera, and had no doubt that the talented singer and playwright could pull off ”that slightly awkward moment when your uncle picks up the guitar”.

Anchor me, anchor me, anchor me (Photo: Screengrab)

Bennet wanted to include a song that New Zealanders would recognise, and initially considered using Dave Dobbyn’s ‘Loyal’. Instead, Bennett chose the poignant, “less cliched” love song ‘Anchor Me’, which he believes is an iconic New Zealand anthem. “It’s warm, it’s positive, there’s a hint of melancholy there – it’s just a wonderful song.” He sought permission from songwriter Don McGlashan, who he knew was “quite particular” about how his songs are used. “He was happy for us. He gave us his blessing, which was great.” 

Watching a hospital CEO transform into a modern-day troubadour could easily veer into David Brent territory, but it’s Galvin’s rendition of ‘Anchor Me’ that keeps the ship steady. “It’s really good to have a moment of warmth and closeness and harmony and happiness immediately before the bomb goes off, and the whole place gets blown to bits,” Bennett says. “Chris Warner is not supposed to be necessarily the world’s greatest singer, so long as it was sung with conviction and heart – which Michael definitely did.”

Angela Bloomfield played Rachel McKenna on Shortland Street for 24 years, and agrees about Galvin’s performance. “Michael’s a great singer,” she says. “It’s kind of sweet to see Dr Warner as human.” Bloomfield experienced her fair share of cliffhangers during her time on the soap, and says the 2013 finale stood out as “a big deal” at the time. Galvin recently told the NZ Herald it took eight takes of him singing ‘Anchor Me’ to get the perfect shot, and Bloomfield says that the longer Galvin serenaded them, the more “stupid and ridiculous“ the cast became. 

Not for long (Photo: Screengrab)

The cast and crew spent two days and nights filming the cliffhanger at a bach at Piha Beach, and both Bennett and Bloomfield remember the setting as more humble than you’d expect from a Warner residence. “We always talk about Chris Warner being the richest person in the world, and we turned up to this little bach, and I was like, ‘what’s this?’”, Bloomfield remembers. “Then you go, ‘hang on, no. If we have a really big luxurious bach, no one’s going to let us film there.” 

Just as well. If ‘Anchor Me’ was the heart of the 2013 cliffhanger, then the explosion was the heart attack. Deep beneath the Warner deck – full fathoms five, almost – the bomb detonated, blowing the deck into smithereens and sending everyone above plummeting to the ground. “I was out there when they shot the explosion, it was quite phenomenal,” Bennett remembers, the deck having been especially built to collapse and explode during the fiery crescendo. “It was one of the biggest things that Shortland Street had undertaken in my time with the show.” 

Kaboom (Photo: Screengrab)

The compass turns, the glass it falls. The episode climax saw the mood shift to darkness and tragedy, leaving Shortland Street fans to worry all summer about who would live and who would die. It’s exactly what Bennett wanted. “If you’re going to potentially blow up a whole community of characters, you want the audience to go, ‘ah, we love them,’ just before the bomb goes off,” Bennett says. “It’s building up the positive in order to maximise the impact of the negative.”  

It’s also a cliffhanger that maximises what Shortland Street does best, by reflecting New Zealand society back at us. Yes, the sequence is full of classic soap melodrama: Grace Kwan wants Chris’s super sperm to make a baby, while villainous doctor Josh has something called “hero syndrome” and plants the bomb just so he can save everyone. But the absurdity is balanced by the heartfelt moment when a group of friends gather at the beach, someone pulls out a guitar, and everyone sings along. It might be corny, but it’s recognisably, wonderfully us.

Tonight, Shortland Street fans will watch the 2023 Christmas cliffhanger, with delicious expectations of a bumper episode bursting with intense drama. But for all of the show’s impressive finales and memorable music moments – Ed Sheeran turning up at the IV, Sol3 Mio singing through a hostage situation, the 30th anniversary musical number – it seems nothing compares to the safe harbour of Chris Warner singing ‘Anchor Me’. It may be 10 years later, but he’s still just a man, singing on his deck, asking his employees to love him. 

The hour-long Shortland Street cliffhanger screens on Thursday 21 December at 7pm on TVNZ 2 and streams on TVNZ+. 

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