Following her marriage, and in keeping with the social expectations of the time, Mary Annette reduced her hours at the Wool Board to part-time. In 1955 Mary Annette presented her last full-scale production for the New Zealand Wool Board, ‘All Eyes on Wool’. The production was presented in Nelson as part of New Zealand’s first ‘Wool Week’, an event which engaged multiple stores in wool advertising throughout the city, and thereby ‘contributed financially to the costs of a large scale wool promotion’. Wool Week marked the beginning of a number of changes in the Wool Board’s approach to promoting wool following the ‘return to more competitive retailing conditions’ [i]
Rather than focusing on the acknowledged merits of wool, and, ‘in common with the other Wool Boards and the International Wool Secretariat… associating wool with high fashion’, the Wool Board decided to ‘encourage the promotion of over-the-counter sales of wool goods of all types, by presenting promotions in which the manufacturer, importer and retailer could increase the sales of their merchandise, making full use of their own brands and trade names in association with the Wool Board’ [ii]
To this end, the Wool Board expanded their partnership base to include Federated Farmers, local woollen mills and retailers in order to present all phases of wool production and processing. The star of this new form of promotion was to be Godfrey Bowen, New Zealander’s world record breaking shearer and the Wool Board’s recently recruited chief shearing instructor. As well as a talented shearer, Bowen was a gifted showman and speaker. During her last months at the Wool Board, Mary Annette and Godfrey worked together. She fondly recalls presenting a show with him at Lethenty, a homestead in Bulls. She wore a woollen gown by Italian designer Maria Antonelli. Godfrey a black singlet. They both placed a hand – hers small, his large – on a sheep standing between them, and spoke – ‘two personalities (or in another retelling, ‘two raving extroverts’) telling a very simple story with tremendous sincerity’ [iii]
When Mary Annette left the Wool Board in 1956 to start a family, Godfrey Bowen became the Wool Board’s new promotional star.The Wool Board’s new, annual large-scale production ‘Fleece to Fashion’ built on the base that Mary Annette had firmly established. Through Fleece to Fashion, the Wool Board sought to emphasise the importance of the shearer, farmer and wool handler to the country’s economy, the merits of wool fibre and the range of goods produced from it within New Zealand. The emphasis on locally made garments reflected the growing confidence of New Zealand’s own design and manufacturing industry, which by 1960 would result in the establishment of the New Zealand Wool Board Fashion Awards.
After leaving the New Zealand Wool Board, Mary Annette Hay never lost her enthusiasm for ‘the miracle of wool’. Mary Annette has remained passionately committed to promoting wool throughout her life. In 2011, at the age of 85,she took on the role of an Honorary Ambassador for the Campaign for Wool, for she truly believes:
‘Whatever happens, for the prosperity of our country, wool must constantly be before our eyes. We must go on using wool and seeing that it reigns supreme among the fibres’ [iv]
Once more she hit the airwaves to promote the fibre she felt so passionately about.
The Mary Annette Hay Collection, which includes garments and archives relating to her years at the New Zealand Wool Board, is held by Te Papa. You can further explore the collection here.
Mary Annette’s 2011 Interview with Kim Hill is available here.
