THIS WEEK IN XENA  NEWS...  
TWXN 102
08/28/97
Thursday

The advance sheet of XENA MEDIA REVIEW (XMR):
http://xenafan.com/xmr

Excerpts from the following cites will appear in future
issues of XMR.


From the editor:

1. TALK ABOUT AIR-HEADS. I seem to have forgotten all
about doing TWXN this week. Oh well. So it goes. At
least I remembered today!

2. IAXS STUFF. IAXS reached the magic 500 mark in
memberships this past week. Also, in an exciting first,
the member's only e-mail edition of WHOOSH #12 was sent
out this morning...4 days before the on-line release.
Are we on top of stuff OR WHAT? WHOOSH #12 is the
looong awaited ALL-AMAZON issue. It was fun to churn
out. The next special edition of WHOOSH will be the
January 1998 issue called "The Men of XWP" which will
"touch base" with every single male thang that the
ladies had close encounters with in the first season.
It will also sport a ready to print out calendar so you
can hang it up at the shop and be the envy of all your
co-workers.

3. NGILA DICKSON. Ngila (pronounced NIGH-la) Dickson is
the costume designer for XWP. She received a major
profile in an Auckland Sunday paper back in April. I
have reprinted it in full here. Enjoy. 

4. TWXN #103 will be another lone star with an article
about how mythology and the "classics" have become the
cutting edge for Hollywood. 


And here's....Ngila!


[    ] 04-13-97
   THE SUNDAY STAR-TIMES (Auckland). Page 6. 1784
words. "Fashion's warrior princess" By Stacy Gregg
   COMMENTARY: Article about Ngila Dickson, costume
designer of XWP
   REPRINT:
   Dickson is in her element. The former fashion
magazine editor lives in constant couture chaos as
costume designer for Xena and Hercules. STACY GREGG
meets the modest maven of New Zealand style
   --------------------
   SKIRTING around the body of a centaur, past a rack
of peasants rags, Ngila Dickson sets a brisk pace
heading towards her office. If space designates your
importance in the work environment (and, sad to say, it
does) it quickly becomes clear that Dickson is the head
honcho around here -- while every other nook and cranny
of this vast waterfront warehouse is crammed with
half-sewn leather jerkins and metal body armour, her
workspace is spare and vast.
   A pile of 100 sparkling sari lie on the floor. On
the wall, pictures of supermodels in couture frocks
mingle in with medieval designs -- Kevin Sorbo and Lucy
Lawless in full fantasy warrior gear. In the picture
that Ngila singles out proudly, Lawless wears a gold
and green gown that is most definitely modern. Despite
churning out 100 costumes a week for the TV series
Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules, Dickson somehow
managed to find the time to design Lawless a gown to
wear to an awards ceremony. "That photo was the first
time in a kazillion years I had something appear in an
actual fashion magazine," she says.  
   "A kazillion" being a slight exaggeration of course.
After all, it was just less than a decade ago that
Dickson had a fashion magazine of her own. In the '80s,
as editor of ChaCha magazine, Dickson introduced the
concept of street fashion and serious style to a New
Zealand market begging for local product along the
lines of Britain's Face magazine.
   Since ChaCha's demise, Dickson's film career as a
costume designer has moved meteorically -- from video
clips and TV commercials through to feature films and
her current post as the head designer and manager of 40
staff for the Xena/Hercules series.
   Obviously, all of this doesn't keep the 41-year-old
busy enough, because she has also taken on the role as
show designer for the Auckland City Art Gallery's
Couture to Chaos exhibition which begins on April 21.
Her role was to create a space where the clothes could
be seen at their best and complemented with artworks
from the same era as she had done for the prequel
exhibition, Worth to Dior.
   Some might suggest that Dickson should cut back the
workload and slow down a bit? Surely she'll be giving
herself a breakdown at this rate?
   "I think I've already had several breakdowns but
nobody has noticed them. Everybody around here sees me
as incredibly calm and I see myself as frantic," she
confesses.
   You can see how people make the mistake -- she has a
remarkably unruffled demeanour, and an utter passion
for film and fashion.
   It was fashion that became her first love. As a
little girl growing up in Dunedin -- "as far from
fashion as you can get" -- she was addicted to her
mother's magazine ration -- French Vogue and Nova
shipped in each month from Europe. "I've still got
copies of Nova and they are extraordinary".
   Moving to Auckland straight after she finished
school, she found a day job at Databank and focused on
making clothes to sell at her Cook St market stall
under the label Zappo. 
   The style was predominantly punk: "The NZ version of
the punk thing -- we weren't suffering on the dole like
the young Brits -- their punk came out of an appalling
lifestyle. What we had was actually a very cosy
lifestyle where there was heaps of work around. We all
just wanted to play with this sort of radical clothing
idea."
   In her studio, she would stay up until all hours of
the morning making clothes. Co-incidentally, in the
studio next door, was a young bloke named Murray
Cammick, also working late into the night pasting up
his magazine, a rock giveaway called Rip It Up. They
became firm friends, and when Dickson returned from a
stint in Sydney -- "far too many New Zealanders there
taking far too many drugs" --she started working
part-time for Cammick as a paste-up girl putting the
magazine together.
   One morning she walked into Rip It Up's scruffy
Darby St offices to find that Cammick and photographer
Max Thompson had organised a surprise for her. An old
desk and a phone had been set up in the corner for her
to sit at. "We've decided you should have a magazine,"
they said. Thompson called it ChaCha and Dickson
plonked herself down in the editor's seat where she
would remain for five years.
   As she says, it was a watershed moment in her life,
and for New Zealand fashion -- ChaCha epitomised the
'80s zeitgeist and nurtured some of our best
photographic talents. The vehicle for young
lens-slingers like Kerry Brown and Daryl Ward (both now
work in the film industry) and Derek Henderson and
Regan Cameron (both now work as international fashion
photographers).
   At the same time, local fashion houses -- Zambesi,
Streetlife and Workshop -- were just finding their
feet. ChaCha gave them an opportunity to find an
audience.
   Dickson, of course, was in there doing her 24-hour
days, "the whole thing was run on a shoestring, but we
worked so hard to make it look anything but. People
always misguidedly thought we had a lot of money to
play with."
   Instead, what kept ChaCha going was passion and a
love of fashion. She remembers a lingerie shoot she
worked on with Regan Cameron. The deadline was looming
and when the pictures came back from the lab the pair
of them sobbed unabashedly. The photographs were awful.
   "He was in tears because he thought I would run the
pictures. I was in tears because I thought he wanted me
to!" A last minute reprieve came of course -- the
deadline was extended, Cameron went over to Sydney, got
himself a model and some icy white lingerie and sent
back a breathtakingly beautiful photo spread.
   "I was looking at old ChaChas with a friend not so
long ago and some of the design in it absolutely stands
up now. But most of it is really old fashioned -- I
mean it was 10 years ago -- it was an era and it's
gone, and that's how it ought to be," says Dickson.
   When the '80s' crash came, ChaCha went the way of
all flesh: "We crashed along with everybody else. It
took me a long time to see that connection because at
the time I was just devastated -- as you are when you
watch the demise of something you've poured your heart
and soul into."
   Still, as she quickly points out, "it provided the
springboard into something I think I'm even better at.
Working in film you need the visual skills to
understand what a garment will look like on film, and
an understanding of how clothes work on the body. You
have to be prepared to work all God's hours and of
course doing ChaCha I was well trained at that. I just
coalesced into the right place."
   By then she was in her early 30s. "You suddenly
realise you haven't wasted your life, you've actually
got a talent."
   Her old friend Kerry Brown gave her a job styling a
rock video. Then came the TV commercials and her first
feature film costuming job -- working on Gregor
Nicholas' User Friendly. The film bombed, the stress
levels soared but Dickson remained firm in the belief
that she had found her new niche. The feature films
kept coming -- Ruby and Rata, Crush and Heavenly
Creatures. She is now into her third season with
Hercules and Xena. 
   "Since I started in the film industry I really
haven't stopped and I am never ungrateful for that."
   Not even her marriage to art consultant and bon
vivant Hamish Keith last year could slow her pace. "It
was dinner on Friday, married on Saturday (dress
courtesy of a last minute bit of sewing by the Hercules
costume crew), honeymoon on Sunday, back at work on
Monday. The whole thing was a blur -- I think there's
a video of it somewhere."
   A couple for five years before they wed, the
Keith-Dickson marriage seems an unlikely partnership.
"I know. I thought we were a pretty unlikely coupling
at the time. Hamish is 20 years older than me and he
was somebody I'd heard about for years. All I can say
is he's perfect for me because Hamish is probably one
of the most liberal, open-minded, passionate people
I've met. What I've found in him though is a person who
just constantly challenges me and he never lets me use
our life as an excuse not to work at what I do."
   When Keith suffered a stroke two months ago, Dickson
says she had her wake-up call on two levels. "It
teaches you a lot about what to value in life and it
also teaches you you can't think about what will
happen. Hamish is absolutely great now and he's back at
work."
   The opportunity to have children, she says without
regret, just seemed to slip by her. "If the opportunity
had been there in the past I would have done it, but it
wasn't and I feel no regret about it. I am just too
selfish now. I just indulge the god children."
   And indulge that love for fashion. The quick
turnover of modern fashion doesn't faze her. "Sure
fashion gets ripped off very quickly -- and aren't you
tired of it very quickly? It helps you become very sure
of who you are. In many ways it gives me great
confidence to say that isn't me -- or that is me. The
turnover rate is phenomenal now and the best thing
about it is that we're getting much better at making
our own decisions about clothes, rather than what is
being pushed at us. Last season's lime green was a
classic example."
   Dickson is still positive about fashion's future.
"Fashion gives you an up' -- when you put on a new
colour or a new shape and it works, suddenly it's a
springboard for everything in your day. That's
fabulous."
   As for a fashion magazine to follow in ChaCha's
footsteps -- "every generation produces its own vehicle
to capture what's happening for that generation. Now
you have Pavement magazine and I guess it's a far more
-- I hesitate to use the word cautious -- they're doing
all the right things to survive which is a really
important thing in publishing. I don't think we had
enough of that attitude. We were busy pushing the
boundaries the whole time. We just desperately wanted
to do the next fabulous thing before anyone else
thought of it."
   Her own future is as uncertain as the next fashion
colour trend. "I have a strong intention to stay with
film. I've always liked short stints of work where I
can give it maximum revs --in this instance I've had to
remain on maximum revs for three series now. The reason
I'm still here is because it hasn't stopped being a
challenge."
   --------------------
   CAPTION: VICKI LEOPOLD MOVER AND SHAKER . . . Ngila
Dickson on the set of Xena. Everybody sees me as
incredibly calm and I see myself as frantic,' she
confesses.
   EARLY DAYS . . . a ChaCha cover (left) and a snap
from the near disastrous lingerie shoot 

