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Northern Advocate:
Hokianga becomes home for international designer
Rawene, far from the urban clamour, is the site of a new creative centre Outpost Hokianga.
Meaning a distant branch or settlement, Outpost is the brainchild of Kohukohu resident Lise Strathdee, who aims for Outpost to evolve into a hub for creative thinking, connecting the Hokianga with the faraway centres.
The centre is being formally opened on Saturday.
"Most people think that rural and isolated living means being out of touch with what is really going on. We intended to challenge this common perception," Ms Strathdee said.
She has spent 20 years living and working in the world's fashion capitals, including Milan, London, New York and has now settled in Hokianga.
Ms Strathdee likes the idea of now working at the distant edge of these fashion worlds and stresses that creative ideas and commitment can be of the same high standard wherever one lives.
"I have met many people here who are very good at what they do. Some have been here doing their thing with love and care for many years, others are more recent rat race refugees like myself. The beauty and low density population here makes for fertile ground for thought space and experimentation."
Strathdee has transformed the front of the 1970's-designed post office on Rawene's mail street into Outpost Hokianga, a shop and gallery trading in a eclectic mix of art, books, crafts, design, fashion, flowers, plants, music, perfume, glass, pottery, t-shirts, and retro furniture.
The aim is to provide visitors with an interesting and beautiful selection of work by local artists and crafts people and to provide locals with a stimulating selection of local products as well as creative information and activities, linked to the outside world.
Ms Strathdee will use part of Outpost as design studio for her online creative consultancy.
She currently works with Libertys of London and Urbis magazine, and was last year creative director for an 80-page segment of New Zealand for Italian design and architecture magazine, Case da Abitare.
"It was during the research for the magazine that the idea of Outpost came to me," she said. "There was such an enormous, exciting amount of original talent in the creative fields here I decided I would like to be one of the many bridges connecting creativity to commerce."
Ms Strathdee trained in design in Milan, going on to work as a designer for Fiorucci and for seven years as right hand to Romeo Gigli.
She later set up a design consultancy in Milan, and in the late 90's based herself in London, with regular trips to Italy and the Far East.
During a sabbatical year in 2001, Ms Strathdee and her Italian partner were drawn to see Tane Mahuta in the Waipoua Forest, discovered Kohukohu and stayed.
"Initially we thought we would do the 'six months here and six months there (overseas) thing'. We found when we were away we missed the Hokianga and that it was our home. We love the lush subtropical climate and growth. Kohukohu is beautiful with its old colonial houses set out in a similar fashion to Italian villages".
21 February 2005