Civilised fun at Hamilton Gardens for Katherine Mansfield Garden Party
Hundreds of Hamiltonians - many dressed in their best 1920s fashions and with plenty of scones and flasks of tea tucked away in their picnic baskets - gathered in the hot sunshine at the Rogers Rose Gardens on Sunday for the third annual Katherine Mansfield Garden Party.
Held in honour of the revered New Zealand author whose works contributed to the then-revolutionary modernist literary movement, the event is now in its third year and has become a staple of the annual Hamilton Gardens Arts Festival.
Live music, Charleston dance lessons, vintage cars and best-dressed competitions were held. Stalls sold retro fashion items and assorted cheeses and other culinary delights.
"It's a nice, chilled out, cruisy event," said attendee Sandra Jensen, employing terminology that was only slightly at odds with her '20s safari outfit that evoked the British Raj.
Jensen and her partner Mark Vuletich are mainstays of the Kirikiriroa Society of Velocipede and Tweed Enthusiasts and, equipped with their vintage bicycles and authentic pith helmets, cut striking figures amid the crowds.
Cutting striking figures in this crowd was no small achievement. Everywhere women were dressed in their best flapper dresses and boater hats, with plenty of beads and high heels while the men were kitted out in dinner suits and plaid jackets - and in one case a World War I fighter pilot's flight suit.
The event was a fundraiser for the new Mansfield Garden, now under construction at the gardens.
"It's recreating the setting from one of her most famous short stories, The Garden Party," said Virginia Graham, the president of the Friends of the Hamilton Gardens.
Elements from Mansfield's description will be constructed, including a tent on a tennis court, in front of a karaka hedge; a lily pond; and long tables covered in crisp white table cloths with 15 kinds of sandwiches and cream puffs.
"We have aimed to raise $150,000 for it and we are well on the way to our target.
"Our group have been propagating and selling many of the rose bushes here, and we have been selling numerous other things too like cheese platters and preserves. It is going wonderfully."
