Vicki's approach in Hagley's full-time fashion school is all about helping students realise their true ability in an area they love.

Vicki Dixon started at Hagley a decade ago teaching Fibre Art, New Zealand Foods and Artwear part-time. The Head of Department was about to retire. Out of the blue, Principal Brent Ingram asked Vicki to imagine if she was heading this department, what direction would she take it in? As Vicki observes, “he obviously wasn't frightened by what I said!”

She applied for and won the HOD position. Vicki’s appointment really led to the beginning Hagley’s Practical Design faculty,  with many Technology areas coming under one roof.

In setting up Practical Design, one of the first initiatives Vicki took was to pitch the idea of a School of Fashion, which today is a thriving and well established specialist school. Vicki started the fashion school because she was observing creative students choosing a range of four-hour fashion based courses which they clearly loved, but in doing so avoiding traditional subjects they were not doing well in.

Vicki firmly believes that if students choose something they are passionate about, they will achieve. Rather than avoiding core learning areas they may feel less confident about, Vicki observes students engaging with literacy and numeracy at advanced levels within a fashion context. The point for her is that immersing students in the subject they love is all it takes for them to realise they had the ability all along in areas they have previously felt they were weak in.

For some students, enrolling in the fashion school can be life changing. Vicki was astounded by a previously withdrawn and non-confident student who found conventional school study challenging. She was transformed on entering the fashion school, so much so that at a Massey University open day, with many unknown students around her, she stood and asked questions of lecturers presenting. This student first graduated from the Hagley Fashion School, then graduated with a four-year Massey degree with honours, and is now completing post graduate work in textile design.

Vicki has a clear approach to students presenting their work. “If you are going to do fashion, it is about putting your creativity out there,” she says. She sees this as a very challenging process where students are baring their hearts and souls. Her students enter in the annual Hokonui Fashion Design Awards in the open section against polytech students and emerging designers, where the judges are leading designers themselves. The Hokonui attracts hundreds of entries each year, and Vicki’s students have taken out the top award in both the street wear and evening wear sections over the years. A highlight in our school calendar, the Hagley Fashion Show, has evolved over the years to the current format where each designer is profiled in a segment of the show. Each designer is given responsibility for their music, models, and make up, as well as of course creating their portfolio to display.

Vicki greatly values the long term collaboration with photography teacher Gavin Hewitt, where students study photography and design to complement their fashion studies. For her, the relationship with art opens another pathway. Vicki sees it as really useful to have someone else’s eyes look at the fashion her students develop, especially someone with an art design perspective like Gavin’s. That experience of mixing photography with fashion has meant some of her fashion students have decided to study design or fine arts, which she celebrates. Vicki sees that as success and not being set on a single pathway.

Vicki’s vision for the long term as Hagley is redeveloped is that we create a design community that would enhance the collaboration already occurring beyond art and fashion. This year in computing, a student is using her skills in a fashion platform by programming LED lights that are being incorporated into a fashion student’s designs, with the lighting program being coded so that it's synchronised with the music in that section of the show.