bentenlaughing

jan.s: Bobi, as I've said before both you and Dinah Lee had 'the London look' more so than anyone else I can remember in Sydney in the '60s'. In fact you had your own look...and exuded cool...can you tell us about your interest in fashion and about the influences of any NZ designers...? Bobi:We made our own clothes as the Boutiques as such, didn't happen until 1962. Our stores carried great fabrics, and of course you chose the pattern, and could change things around as you went, of course we loved the mini - it got more mini by the minute...In Auckland The Casual Shop was really our first Mod Boutique, but only earning 4 - 5 Pounds a week, could only afford to look then, or buy on sale.   Dinah hadn't arrived in Auckland, and Jacky Holme and I used to do summer and winter fashion parades, we had that look.  Bobi, Billy Thorpe, Jacky Holme Jacky had already cut my hair into the bob, with huge dressmaking shears - Dinah put that ...

Jan.s: Bobi when did you begin painting? Bobi: I started learning to paint beginning March 1993. I had a friend who had been going to Derek Newton who taught from his home on the North Shore, her husband was an artist and still is. So we all started from the beginning, with learning to draw, something I had never done in my life, watercolours they say its the hardest medium. I would go for a term and have a term off, So I went on an off till 1996. We started using one colour only, light to dark and I really enjoyed it. Derek of course would help us through the painting when we started, and we were all pretty neat and tidy - we learned how to mix paints from the primary 3 colours. Red/blue and yellow. We would go off to the beach and paint also quite early on. Skies, waves, beach, birds, houses, hills, landscapes in 1994 - and painted on and off during 1995/1996 Motor Racing took over our life for a few years so had time off, as I was in charge of the food, cooking for our Te...