Art Deco Weekend in Napier

Art Deco Weekend every year in Napier, New Zealand.
This is a weekend for everyone to put on the glitz, because we’re all invited to dust off the fox furs and to ‘Do Art Deco’.

Dressing up is not compulsory but it does add to the atmosphere of this not-too-serious fun-filled celebration, which gets bigger and better every year.

Our city of Jazz offers heaps of events throughout the weekend and many of them are free, making it a truly inexpensive time for the whole family to enjoy, because this is one big party for the whole town to join in the spirit of things.

Some will hire costumes while others can throw together a string of beads, maybe a hat or a scarf around the forehead and an ostrich feather or two. There are no rules, it is just pure fun for everyone, and each year there is increasing numbers of tourists and locals who wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Since February 1989, the Trust stages this annual Brebner Print Art Deco Weekend which attracts participants from all over New Zealand and from other countries. With more than 100 events, large and small, many of which are free, the emphasis is on a dash of education mixed with an awful lot of fun.

Robert McGreggor, who is a fourth generation Napierite and executive of the Art Deco Trust, says he’s always been interested and involved in architecture and it was during the 1970’s when a friend told him that Napier was an Art Deco city.

“I had failed to notice and it didn’t leave much of an impression until the President of the British Museum Association visited in 1983 and pointed out to me that nobody built cities during the Depression. So, although there are a lot of Art Deco buildings there are virtually no Art Deco cities, only one or two. That’s when I realised how unusual we were, and we had something that was marketable, something we could hang our hat on and make Napier famous.