Fashion, politics, APEC, textiles

One of the most recognisable features of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in popular culture is the “family photo”, showing world leaders dressed in attire representing the host nation (Fig. 1). Established in 1993 and an integral APEC tradition until 2011, pictures from this event were disseminated globally so the garments were carefully chosen for their cultural representation of the host country. Auckland Museum holds a collection of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) uniforms worn by former Prime Minister, The Right Honourable Helen Clark during her tenure (1999–2008). From a handwoven Chilean ‘chamanto’ to an Australian Driza-Bone coat these r eveal different interpretations of a national identity projected through clothing.

Figure 1. 

APEC Summit in Australia 7–9 September 2007. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 4.0.

In addition to the various Asia-Pacific forum garments, the collection includes outfits worn by Clark while hosted by international leaders such as the President of the United States and Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II. Despite her political career firsts, as a woman in the male-dominated sphere of global politics her clothing choices attracted as much scrutiny as her policies. These additional garments can be read as evidence of her sartorial diplomacy on the world stage through her support of New Zealand designers. However, the popular media characterised Clark’s clothing choices according to recognised gender norms despite the second wave of feminism she symbolised. The Clark collection of garments can be viewed through two lenses: Clark’s chosen self-representation, and the cultural representation of APEC uniforms drawn from the textile traditions of their host countries.

Figure 2. 

The Right Honourable Helen Clark. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 4.0.

New Zealand entered the twentieth century as the first country to grant women the vote. A century later, it was one of the few countries in the world to have elected a female Prime Minister, the Rt Hon. Helen Clark. Clark would also become the first Labour Prime Minister to secure three consecutive terms, cementing her legacy in New Zealand political history.

Born in 1950, Clark grew up in rural Waikato as one of four daughters and spent her high school years boarding at Epsom Girls Grammar School in Auckland.

Arriving at the University of Auckland in 1968, at the height of the counter-culture movement, Clark immersed herself in local and international causes. She was active in mobilising against the Vietnam War; joined Halt All Racist Tours (HART) when the organisation was set up to oppose South African sporting contact; and took a keen interest in preserving a nuclear-free New Zealand. By 1971 she had joined the Labour Party and worked behind the scenes on election campaigns, preparing policy, and membership drives. Having built up a strong Labour support base, she was elected in 1987 as Member of Parliament for the Auckland electorate of Mt Albert, a seat she held until 2009. During her time in office, she championed controversial issues including anti-nuclear policy, same-sex civil union, prostitution law reform and gender equality.

Upon leaving Parliament in 2009, Clark became the first woman to lead the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), overseeing it’s work in developing nations. During her tenure in she was named by Forbes magazine as the 21^st most important woman in the world (2013). She continues to hold influential positions on the international political stage, including co-chairing in 2020 the panel to review the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 pandemic response.

Despite her political firsts, Clark’s clothing choices attracted as much, if not more, scrutiny as her policies. Her tailored, understated wardrobe reflected second-wave feminism’s emphasis on practicality and professional authority. Popular media framed her appearance according to recognised gender norms despite the second wave of feminism she symbolised. Although held up as an example of female success, Clark’s time as prime minister coincided with the late 1990s and early 2000s period in which media culture celebrated the concept of “girl power” but regularly savaged women in the public eye who behaved outside a narrow spectrum of permitted femininity. In 2021, Vox reporter Constance Grady retrospectively named this the “bubblegum misogyny” of the early 2000s (Grady 2021). At this time, there was the perception that women were post-feminist and had achieved equality yet were still mired in a “raunch culture” in which it was “important to be tanned and sexy and taut and down for anything”. (Grady 2021)

These ideals filtered from pop culture into the everyday media landscape in New Zealand. This was seen in the relentless focus on the personal style of Christine Rankin, then-chief of Work and Income New Zealand, while facing a public inquiry in the late 1990s. Rankin’s large earrings and purportedly short skirts were seized upon by cartoonists and political commentators of the time (BBC 2001) (Fig. 3). Meanwhile, Clark received scrutiny for supposedly playing down her femininity and even faced accusations of lesbianism for the audacity of being childless. In comparing the two women, we can see how it was a time when there was no “right way” to be female in the public eye.

Figure 3. 

Scott, Tom (26 June 2001). Cartoon published in the “Evening Post”. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. Ref: H-648-085. All rights reserved.

This atmosphere was also pervasive in Parliament, despite its female leader and one-third female membership in 2003. In a speech to the house that year, Green Member of Parliament (MP) Sue Kedgley decried the boys-club atmosphere of parliament as a “quintessentially male place of old-style, old-fashioned aggression, competition, and point-scoring,”, imploring women MPs “to take a lead in bringing about a cultural revolution in this House” (Kedgley 2003).

The intense focus levelled at the outward appearance of women in the public sphere is a persistent global phenomenon. In 2020, Finland’s prime minister Sanna Martin found herself at the centre of debate after appearing in a magazine wearing a trouser suit without a shirt beneath her jacket, sparking a wave of supportive social media selfies from women similarly dressed (Speare-Cole 2020). News coverage of male politicians’ clothing is comparatively rare, and fashion commentary on women leaders often eclipses their political work. Clark was keenly aware of this, saying, “You can have the most brilliant ideas and greatest vision and lots of strengths in every respect but if you appear on television and people are mesmerised by what you are wearing or your hairstyle, they won’t hear a thing you say. So that is the issue we had to work through in essence, to get a hairstyle and clothes which stop people thinking ‘What is she wearing today?’ or ‘do they like the hair?’ and turn it into something that became part of the background if you like, so that my message could be heard”(as cited in Pond Eyley and Salmon, pp. 67, 2015).

Against this backdrop, Clark was aware of the role of dress as part of her public image, understanding that looking well-tailored would add to her air of authority. To counteract some of the media fascination with sartorial politics Clark, like other female political leaders at the time such as Hilary Clinton, pioneered the pant suit, a form of dress perceived to be less feminine. Although an interest in fashion did not come naturally, she built up relationships with New Zealand designers like Jane Daniels and Liz Mitchell who created good quality pieces, appropriate for the demands of the job. Daniels and Mitchell helped to shape an understated but professional style for Clark, but occasionally there were hiccups — most memorably, with a simple pair of trousers. The infamy of this garment was enough to earn it a place at number 93 in historian Jock Phillips’ (2022) book, “A History of New Zealand in 100 Objects”.

In February 2002, Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip, visited New Zealand during their Golden Jubilee tour. As part of the official programme, a state banquet was held in Wellington. The Queen wore a white gown with a beaded lace overlay and gold accessories for the occasion. She also wore several New Zealand Orders, including the star and red sash of the New Zealand Order of Merit, plus the ribbons and badges of two more Orders, the Queen’s Service Order and the Order of New Zealand. Clark was required to attend and turning to her wardrobe she selected a sequined silk blouse made by Jane Daniels and a pair of tidy black trousers by Auckland designer Trish Gregory (Fig. 4). The contrast in mood between Clark’s outfit and the Queen’s formal ballgown was striking but as Phillips notes, it was not until the British press drew attention to Clark’s trousers that the incident sparked a furore in New Zealand— even prompting ACT MP Stephen Franks to accuse her of making a political statement about republicanism (2002).

Figure 4. 

Jane Daniels (circa 2002) and Trish Gregory (1988). Jacket and trousers worn by Helen Clark at State Banquet for Queen Elizabeth II, 2002. Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira. 2010.1.16. All Rights Reserved.

Jane Daniels had in fact designed a pair of full silk culottes to go with the sequined blouse, which, resembling a skirt, may have better escaped notice. The plain black polyester wide-legged trousers Clark chose to wear instead dated from Trish Gregory’s 1988 winter collection ¹. Evidently when faced with one of the most important dinners of her career, Clark turned to an old favourite from her wardrobe, a reliable pair of smart black trousers, likely never dreaming the uproar that would follow.

Reflecting on the demands of formal events, Clark noted that official functions often came with very specific dress requirements. “[T]here would have been at least one occasion for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting where the dress rules are laid down for the type of clothes you would wear to a ball or dinner with the Queen. Well, I would not normally have such a thing in my wardrobe. For one thing, I hate balls. I haven’t been to one since I was forced to go at high school as a boarder. But … you have to get clothes for those occasions. I wouldn’t say that I had my own designer because I always had what was available to the general public, but yes, I did have a long-standing commercial relationship, if you like, with designers who would help me put a wardrobe together” (as cited in Pond Eyley and Salmon, pp. 113–114, 2015). Designers like Jane Daniels understood the need for Clark to look well-tailored and authoritative, working with her to select colours and garment styles in which she felt comfortable.

The Museum collection also includes a jacket designed by Jane Daniels and worn by Clark during her 2004 meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush (Jr) at the White House in Washington D.C. (Fig. 5). The meeting was the first official engagement between a New Zealand Labour Prime Minister and a United States President since the adoption of the country’s nuclear-free policy. Clark had long championed the Labour Party’s antinuclear stance, with Jim Anderton describing her as the “flag-bearer in Parliament” for the policy. Margaret Wilson later observed that the anti-nuclear movement of the early 1980s was a natural progression from the Vietnam War era, asserting an autonomous foreign policy that redefined New Zealand’s relationship with its allies without veering into isolationism (Pond Eyley and Salmon 2015). Clark’s commitment to that autonomy was evident in her decision not to join the United States and the United Kingdom in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Figure 5. 

Jane Daniels (circa 2004). Jacket, worn by Helen Clark at first meeting with President Bush, circa 2004. Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira. 2010.1.17. All Rights Reserved.

For her historic meeting with Bush, Clark wore a Jane Daniels jacket made from black and cream wool with a subtle check pattern. The single breast jacket features a slightly asymmetrical cut and is fastened with a decorative hook and eye – a formal jacket for an important occasion, but with some idiosyncratic touches which made it stylish and contemporary.

Friends including Dame Cath Tizard, Judith Tizard and Margaret Wilson tried to help her with her appearance, her clothes and her hair. She also received assistance from media consultants who advised on appearance, delivery, energy and engagement. She understood the need for impression management and (perhaps reluctantly) took this advice on board. Ultimately, however, Clark was a pragmatist: “This is not America where you are accompanied by a stylist who tells you what to wear and does your hair every day, this is Kiwi land, and we are do - it - yourself - ers and I am a do - it - yourself - er!” (as cited in Pond Eyley and Salmon, pp. 113, 2015).

Clark’s wardrobe was expanded through the attire associated with the international diplomatic events she attended, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meetings in 2004 and 2007. The garments Clark wore to these occasions were made by Jane Daniels and Liz Mitchell respectively and show hallmarks of the designers’ styles. Both were made from fabric supplied by ASEAN host countries and were designed specifically to Clark’s taste and needs. For the 2004 meeting in Vientiane, Laos, Daniels produced a jacket made from handwoven and naturally dyed fabric from Phaeng Mai Gallery, which features the designer’s signature asymmetrical cut (Fig. 6). She highlighted a decorative handwoven panel in the silk that runs vertically from the right shoulder and chose three decorative coconut shell buttons to finish the garment.

Figure 6. 

Jane Daniels (2004). Jacket, worn by Helen Clark at ASEAN meeting, Laos, 2004. Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira. 2010.1.9. All Rights Reserved.

For the 2007 meeting in Cebu, Philippines, Liz Mitchell constructed a jacket made from red and cream batik silk, and a matching shirt for Clark’s husband, Peter. Mitchell was a natural choice to tailor the jacket and shirt as she was used to working with short lengths of unique fabrics like kimono silk and saris. For the jacket, she took advantage of the decorative border of the fabric, placing it down the central placket and around the hem and cuffs (Fig. 7). Mindful of the tropical climate in which the jacket would be worn, she chose a loose-fitting style and lightweight net lining.

Figure 7. 

Liz Mitchell (2007). Jacket, worn by Helen Clark at ASEAN meeting, Cebu, Philippines, 2007. Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira. 2010.1.10. All Rights Reserved.

Unlike the ASEAN garments, the APEC outfits were made with almost none of Clark’s input, beyond the occasional choice offered around colourway. The APEC matching shirt tradition began in 1993 when U.S. President Bill Clinton handed out bomber jackets to attendees in Seattle, although it was not until the following year in Bogor, Indonesia, that the group was photographed wearing their matching outfits together. Fashion brought a moment of levity to what was otherwise a serious and potentially politically tense gathering. The group shot at the end of the meeting became known as the “family photo”, and the tradition continued almost every year until 2011, when U.S. President Obama suspended the obligatory wearing of cultural costume due to concerns that it overshadowed the event itself² (Tapper 2011).

Clark’s tenure, however, coincided with the height of the “matching outfits” period. With months of media speculation in advance of the event, APEC host countries carefully considered how to define their national character through the medium of dress. Using costume to project an image could also be part of a wider strategy of soft power enacted by the host country. The “family photo” is a strong visual marker of the country’s culture and heritage and is disseminated globally to audiences who may not otherwise engage with the political issues under discussion.

As demonstrated by her own wardrobe, fashion is part of the toolbox used by leaders like Helen Clark to maintain an air of authority. Media therefore picked up on the sheepish discomfort often visible in the leaders at APEC when wearing garments vastly different to their day-to-day dress. Colloquially, the media referred to this moment as the “silly shirts” photo (Daly 2021), yet this sobriquet does no justice to the rich cultural traditions which are present in these garments and even denigrates the contribution of the (usually female) artisans who spent months crafting them. By examining some of the APEC garments in the Helen Clark collection, we see how they weave together tradition, innovation, indigenous art practices, and social history.

When talked about in jocular terms, one of the most common outfits used to illustrate this theme is that of the 2004 APEC meeting in Santiago, Chile (Fig. 8). In a 2016 article reviewing APEC outfits of the past 19 years, CNN somewhat absurdly captioned a photo of the leaders: “With a jaunty nonchalance in Santiago (2004), George Bush showed a boxed-in Vladimir Putin how to properly fill out a poncho.” (CNN Travel 2016)

Figure 8. 

APEC Summit in Chile 20–21 November 2004. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 4.0.

Often erroneously called a poncho, the leaders wore a unique Chilean garment known as a “chamanto”. The chamanto is woven from silk and wool on a vertical loom. It is formed from a single rectangular piece, with a border which is woven separately and handstitched onto the garment, folded at the corners. The chamanto is reversible, with the darker side of the garment worn during the day and the lighter side at night. Only a limited colour palette is used on each chamanto and the artisans choose decorative symbols drawn from the natural world, which are passed down from generation to generation within weaving families. The chamanto made for Clark features sheaves of wheat and the copihue, the national flower of Chile (Fig. 9).

Figure 9. 

Nelly Beltran, Elia Beltran and Juana Soto (2004). Chamanto worn by Helen Clark at APEC meeting, Santiago, Chile, 2004. Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira. 2010.1.7. All Rights Reserved.

Chamantos are typically worn by “huasos” (Chilean cowboys), hence the comfortable, loose fit and durable fabric. They are woven in the agricultural town of Doñihue in Central Chile, and a single garment takes three to four months. Clark’s chamanto, unlike other garments in the collection, arrived at Auckland Museum in its original box with a leaflet which named the weavers: Elia Beltran, Nelly Beltran and Juana Soto. Contemporary reports mentioned that the weavers were proud to produce the APEC garments as the chamanto is often passed down as a family heirloom, and so the weavers would often only sell one new garment a year (Shu-ling 2004).

The chamanto was the choice of President Ricardo Lagos who had been gifted one from Doñihue and, a report from the time noted, he was so “fond of the beautiful gift that he thought it would be a perfect gift for the APEC leaders this year. He assigned his wife to take care of the matter.” As we shall see this is not the last time wives will be invoked in sartorial decision-making around APEC.

The 2002 APEC meeting was hosted in Mexico in Los Cabos on the Baja peninsula. Most delegates were male and wore a “guayabera” (shirt), while the three female delegates each wore a handwoven “huipil” (a loose-fitting tunic form common throughout central America) and a “faja en telar de cintura” (belt) (Fig. 10).

Figure 10. 

Huipil worn by Helen Clark at APEC meeting, Mexico, 2002. Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira. 2010.1.5. All Rights Reserved.

The huipil chosen for APEC was woven by Tzotzil weavers in San Andres Larrainzar in Chiapas, Southern Mexico. It is constructed from three white cotton panels with a supplementary brocade in the upper portion. The women of the Sna Jolobil weaving collective who created the huipiles are Tzotzil, an indigenous Maya people of the Chiapas highlands. Their designs draw from their ancestry and can function as rich visual texts that illustrate the Mayan worldview. According to design historian Dr Diana Albarran Gonzalez, the diamond motif seen in the supplementary woven portion, known as the “Me Luch”, represents the Mayan universe, and is an important design in Chiapas textiles (2020).

Sna Jolobil, which means “The Weaver’s House” in the Tzotzil language, is one of the oldest weaving co-operatives in Chiapas. These co-operatives were initially administered by state and federal agencies including Mexico’s Instituto Nacional Indigenista (INI)³ and aimed to recognise the cultural importance of indigenous arts and to facilitate the sale of their wares. One of the three stated aims of the 2002 APEC meeting was “Strengthening APEC’s international relevance by encouraging greater participation of youth and women, intensifying efforts to promote the benefits of globalization and improving the functioning of APEC” (APEC 2002). It is therefore possible that the choice of huipil from the Sna Jolobil co-operative was intended to honour the spirit of this commitment.

Where the 2002 APEC garments aimed to be regionally specific and deeply traditional, the outfits from the previous year in Shanghai, China, sought to convey a modern yet recognisably Chinese national identity which blended tradition and innovation.

The Museum collection includes the short-sleeved silk blouse and jacket worn by Clark, and the brocade garment bag embroidered with her title in gold. The leaders had a choice of six colours for the jacket – unsurprisingly, Clark selected the red version, a colour closely associated with the Labour Party and wider labour movement.

The jacket is a silk polyester machine-woven satin brocade, featuring a pattern of “tuanhua” (circular medallions) which incorporate the letters “APEC” surrounded by peonies (Fig. 11). The jacket is lined and fitted and features knot buttons and a high collar. In their sophisticated workmanship and modern materials, the Chinese garments advertise the important role of textiles in China’s industry, past and present. Two suits were prepared for each leader, one finished and one semi-finished and able to be adjusted.

Figure 11. 

Yu Ying and team (2001.) Jacket worn by Helen Clark at APEC meeting, Shanghai, 2001. Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira. 2010.1.2. All Rights Reserved.

Figure 12. 

Garment bag used by Helen Clark at APEC meeting, Shanghai, 2001. Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira. 2010.1.4. All Rights Reserved.

This emphasis on a fitted silhouette is one of the novel aspects of the jacket, named by its designers the Tangzhuang, or “Modern Tang Suit”. Design scholar Dr. Jianhua Zhao describes how these garments were designed to be “ambiguously traditional”, aiming to achieve a pan-Chinese political neutrality (Zhao 2013). Rather than reproduce a specific traditional garment such as the “changshan” (long robe), or the common option for contemporary Chinese businesswear, the “zhongshanzhuang” (Mao suit), APEC commissioned the designers to create a new garment which combined classical Chinese elements with Western tailoring.

The closest cousin of the Tang suit was the “magua”, a shirt worn by Manchu people during the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), but the APEC suits swap raglan sleeves for a set-in sleeve with shoulder pads. The suit aimed to portray China as a cutting-edge player in the fashion design and manufacture industries; Chinese media reported that “The Modern Tang Suit is a telling example of giving a modern expression to traditional Chinese elements in an era of globalization” (China Daily 2021). The success of this attempt at defining a modern national costume could be seen in the enthusiastic, if short-lived, “tangzhuang craze” in China which followed the APEC meeting, with the original designers moving on start their own successful design businesses (Zhao 2013).

When Australia hosted APEC in 2007, there was fervent media speculation about how the organisers would define a national costume (AFP 2007). Like New Zealand, as a former colony Australia has grappled with the question of how to represent an identity distinct from the former seat of the empire, while avoiding cultural appropriation of Indigenous traditions. A comparable example from the period is the 2003 Qantas uniform designed by Peter Morrissey and Balarinji Design Studio. The textile design, titled “Wirriyarra”, features earth tones drawn from the Australian landscape and boomerang motifs rendered in the style of Australian aboriginal dot painting. Developed in partnership with Aboriginal-owned Indigenous design and strategy agency Balarinji, it represented a surface design approach to questions of identity representation in clothing.

For APEC, however, the organisers defaulted to what was proposed by many as the obvious answer – Driza-Bone, a brand synonymous with the image of the Australian stockman. Then-Prime Minister John Howard selected the Driza-Bone coat as the national outfit, reportedly “with counsel and good advice” from his wife, Janette, and the APEC taskforce (Hudson 2007). As with the Chilean example, the wife is involved with this important decision – presumably made in the knowledge that majority of wearers would be men. Nevertheless, the image of the hypermasculine, isolated, and hard-labouring Australian stockman is somewhat at odds with the politicians who wore these jackets.

The Driza-Bone coat is an established Australian icon, worn by ANZAC soldiers at Gallipoli and by medal presenters at the 2000 Olympic games. The origins of the garment, however, lay slightly further afield. In 1849 Emilius Le Roy, a young sea captain, arrived in New Zealand from England and established sailmaking business E. Le Roy Ltd in Auckland. The development of steam-powered travel forced the business to diversify, and by the start of the 20^th century they produced tents, marquees, coats and other canvas items. Le Roy sailcloth coats were popular with nautical men and were waterproofed with a mixture of linseed oil, paraffin and beeswax by Le Roy’s son on Great Barrier Island. Eventually Emilius’s brother Edward went into business with Thomas and set up a partner company in Manly, New South Wales. In 1933 they trademarked the name Driza-Bone and over the following decades adapted the coat for use in the outback. This included the addition of a fantail split at the reverse to fit over a horse and saddle while riding, and the development of a new oiling process that would not harden and crack in the fierce Australian sun or be flammable around campfires.

For the APEC meeting, leaders had a range of four colours inspired by the natural splendour of the Australian landscape; slate blue (ocean), mustard yellow (sun and sand), red ochre (outback), and eucalyptus green (the bush). Although Clark is shown in the “family photo” in a yellow coat, the example in the Museum collection has a red lining which, as with the Chinese outfit, we can assume she later chose to match the Labour Party brand (Fig. 13).

Figure 13. 

Driza-Bone (2007). Coat worn by Helen Clark at APEC meeting, Australia, 2007. Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira. 2010.1.8. All Rights Reserved.

The Clark collection provides a window into how garments can connect to wider stories of the role of fashion for women in the public eye. Clark’s tenure as Prime Minister came at a time when there was tension between appearing explicitly feminine and appearing powerful in a male-dominated environment.

The garments in the Auckland Museum collection demonstrate Clark’s sartorial choices, but also those of nations engaging in their own process of image projection on the global stage. Through examining these case studies, we can learn how Indigenous traditions continue in textiles, the role of women in maintaining the latter, and how textiles are intrinsically linked to identity.