Meet Eden Hore

Eden Hore (1919-1997), a Māniatoto high-country farmer, created an extraordinary collection of 1970s and 80s New Zealand designer fashion. The fascinating story of how and why he did that is told in detail in Central Otago Couture: The Eden Hore Collection, by Jane Malthus, Claire Regnault with photographs by Derek Henderson.

His off-farm experiences in the 1960s of driving John Hore Grenell to gigs, including touring with Miss New Zealand shows, exposed him to some of New Zealand’s best fashion designers of the time. He realised that fashion could draw people to his region, so starting buying eye-catching clothes and turned a tractor shed into a showroom.

While his lavish fashion collection of over 270 items is perhaps the most intriguing paradox of Eden Hore’s remarkable life, it certainly didn’t exist in isolation. Based at his Naseby high country station, Glenshee, Eden Hore was a true impresario. Interwoven with the Central Otago region he loved, his many endeavours tell us he was a man transfixed by imagining ‘what if?’ – and then making it happen!.

Among other things he:

• Established a grand formal garden, planting hundreds of rose and rhododendron bushes around a large illuminated fountain
• Staged regular fashion shows in his garden – as fundraisers for local charities
• Imported live bison and yaks, and bred deer, goats and miniature horses
• Flew entertainers like Howard Morrison and Eddie Lowe to his high-country airstrip to perform at his garden parties
• Collected cars, stuffed animals and decorative decanters
• Purchased a 16mm projector when the Naseby cinema closed, so that on Saturday nights many locals were at his place ‘Glenshee’ enjoying his favourite comedies.

Eden was certainly an enigma to many. He would go into Dunedin in his white farm overalls to buy a latest model car one day, and the next be dressed up (and often accompanied by a young woman or two wearing dresses from his collection) at high-brow events at the Town Hall. He travelled extensively, making friends with exotic animal traders and joining bus-tours in dozens of countries. While we know his life and peccadillos were at times seen by his neighbours and family as eccentric, he also often showed a generous spirit towards his community. And he was a loner at times, preferring to ‘get stuck’ in to the farming and ignoring everything else.