Review: Split Enz, by Noel Crombie and Michael Dwyer

When I was invited to be content advisor for the very successful Volume: Making Music in Aotearoa exhibition which ran at the Auckland War Memorial Museum from October 2016 to May 2017, I wanted two visually striking and cultural resonant displays: Chris Knox's huge self-portrait, in the manner of Aboriginal dot paintings he'd done for his Croaker album, and some of the stage clothes Noel Crombie made for Split Enz.

We got them. Knox's painting came from his spare bedroom, and the four Enz costumes arrived from the Australian Performing Arts Collection at Art Centre Melbourne, where almost all Crombie's colourful, and sometimes quite crazy, costumes are held.

The hardback Split Enz: An Adventure in Music and Design (Allen & Unwin), with numerous photos of his creations and explanatory comments from Crombie and Split Enz members, is a reminder of how integral Crombie was. Not just to how the band presented itself, but how he mirrored their music which was, initially at least, a hyperreal borrowing of different styles collaged into shape and coherence. Crombie's multi-coloured clothes – that he would sew, tuck, fit and modify as the band toured – were similar.

Crombie, Tim Finn, Phil Judd and their lighting director Raewyn Turner  – Crombie's girlfriend early on who moved into various Enz roles almost by osmosis, as did Crombie – all attended Elam School of Art in Auckland which reflects the synergy between Enz's visual and musical art.

Tim Finn talks of Crombie as being ‘intriguing, with a nonchalant, almost aristocratic air about him’. The first costumes turned up without invitation, but from then on they were welcomed.

‘I had no idea about fashion,’ Crombie admits. ‘I was not the slightest bit interested in clothes … but I was interested in making things.’

That explains how he could create without any limitations of design or couture on his imagination: polka dots, patchwork, suggestions of Picasso and Mondrian, ideas from the Commedia dell'arte and clowns, exaggerated sizes and cuts. In the late 1970s there were the beautiful Pasifika suits: ‘I liked the idea of reminding people that we come from this little Pacific island.’ Split Enz wore them to places where the audience hadn't seen such remarkable designs and colours before. 

Self-effacing and modest, Crombie says, ‘I can't take any credit for that, really, because these are all just over-the-counter prints. You go down to South Auckland and there's shops full of it.’ But it took Crombie – who played spoons and later drums in the band -- to see these designs and turn them into clothing art.

Crombie also brought his eye to Split Enz's often arresting videos, and the famous geometric design for the band's True Colours album (1979), which he asked the record company to reproduce in different colour combinations. And aside from the terrific music – the seminal I Got You, Poor Boy, Shark Attack, I Hope I Never among the songs – the album sold extremely well because fans collected the cover variants.

Neil Finn says ‘Split Enz rejected all of the iconography and mythology of rock'n'roll. They were really a reaction against it.’ Noel Crombie was the man who could instinctively dress them for the part. Without his critical, off-kilter eye, skills as a designer and with a sewing machine there wouldn't have been the Split Enz we know.

‘He wasn't necessarily at the centre of things but he had this weird charisma,’ say Neil of Crombie's stage presence. ‘People would sit and watch him do nothing on stage for 10 minutes and all of a sudden he'd do one little look or something.’

This book is a handsomely presented career overview of his costumes, videos, album covers and other designs; a unique Noel Crombie gift in the form of a modestly-sized coffee-table book. One you'll actually keep picking up.