Fashion designer Jimmy D and the fight against the dull and turgid hick town

In 1995 the Hutt Chamber of Commerce unveiled a city slogan that, even by today’s standards, seems of questionable taste: ‘Right up my Hutt Valley’. 

Yes, its funny and a little naughty, and it became the title of one of the earliest fashion collections of Upper Hutt born and raised designer James Dobson, with his label Jimmy D. 

The slogan speaks neatly to Dobson’s gift with his fashion  for dark suburban humour and playful subversion 

Jimmy D is welcome proof that fashion needn’t be just glitz and glamour or business suits. It can elevate a grungier street reality. 

Further, it can now also be androgynous. Dobson playfully extends everything from the hoodie and t-shirt to dress as clothes worn regardless of gender. His Instagram account Beauty Benders meanwhile has been “Degendering and encouraging expression in makeup since 2020.”

Initially training as a photographer, after working the fashion retail floor in Pōneke Wellington and London, Dobson established Jimmy D in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland in 2004, winning the Mercedes Start-Up Award first season. By 2011 his work was acquired by Te Papa for the national collection for a collaboration with artist Andrew McLeod. 

Long inspired by both art and club culture, with a rich history of collaboration with artists, Dobson has now been welcomed into the art gallery proper. And back to the Hutt. 

In The House of Dowse x Jimmy D at the Dowse Art Museum Dobson’s designs find companionship in his selection of works from the museum’s collection. Dobson’s choices reflect his interest in the dark, absurd and suburban. He says he’s been particularly drawn to photography, queer artists and contrasting forms.

In fact the ‘house’ of the title turns out not just to be a play on the concept of the fashion house - like the House of Gucci - but an actual state house. Recalling Dobson’s roots and a big part of the look of the Hutt valley, the smart exhibition design employs walls of white weatherboard, pink treated four-by-two, and even a mesh fence. 

To this comes a mirrorball and the fantastical takes on the ordinary of many great Aotearoa New Zealand artists. It’s a show that beautifully asserts the dream space artists provide in transforming the mundanity in our lives. 

Dobson even recalls in the exhibition the words of a former Hutt Valley mayor John Kennedy-Good who said of the purpose of the establishment of the Dowse in 1970 that it was to prevent the city from turning into “a dull and turgid hick town.”  

The exhibition is then, on several counts, right up your Hutt Valley. The House of Dowse x Jimmy D runs until March 2025. 

James Dobson joined Mark Amery on Culture 101.