No one would claim that the '20s and '30s were perfect years, but they had a sense of style and sophistication that has never been forgotten. That style lives on at Art Deco Napier.

Napier, a town of 56,000 in the heart of Hawke's Bay wine country on New Zealand's east coast, throws itself with enthusiasm into the past: Every year on the third week of February, locals and visitors dress to the nines. Hundreds of spit-and-polish vintage autos cruise along Marine Drive, big band music wafts through the air, and laughter is everywhere.

Some visitors return annually. Anne and Geoff Beetham of Auckland have been here eight times: "Every year we say we won't come again, and every year we come again," she says. George and Iris Phillips of Orewa (north of Auckland on the Hibiscus coast) have been twice "and we're booked for next year," he says. Phillips, 75, loves to sing and is often invited to join the men's choir that strolls through the heart of the downtown area. "It's fun," he says, with a big smile.

Peter Mooney, Art Deco Festival coordinator, tells the story of an English woman who made her first visit to the Art Deco Festival in 2003. "She wore a long gown with a train. She said it was the gown she had worn when she was presented at Buckingham Palace," he says. This year she returned to the festival, with a dozen friends in tow to this North Island city.

Napier (a four-hour drive north of New Zealand's capital, Wellington) is a popular retirement and tourism center, set among rolling hills where sheep farms, orchards and vineyards flourish, and agriculture — mostly vineyards — is the main industry.

Art Deco, which is considered to be eclectic, was a major style in Europe from the early 1920s.

The city was destroyed by a massive earthquake (7.8 on the Richter scale) on February 3, 1931. Only a few buildings in the downtown area survived and 162 people died. Napier was rebuilt in just two years.

At that time Art Deco was fashionable. It was safe, as all new buildings had to be built of concrete — a material then thought to be resistant to earthquakes and fire. And it was cheap to build with concrete. The typical relief stucco ornaments were an economical way to beautify buildings during the Great Depression. Today, Napier is said to have the largest collection of Art Deco buildings outside Miami. It was from tragedy that today's treasure was created.

Art Deco was a movement in decorative arts that also influenced architecture. Its name was coined during the World's Fair held in Paris in 1925, which was formally titled “Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes.”

Art Deco, which is considered to be eclectic, was a major style in Europe from the early 1920s. It is characterized by use of organic materials such as sharkskin and zebra skin, zigzag and stepped forms, bold and sweeping curves, chevron patterns and sunburst motifs. One example of the popular sunburst motif is the spire of the Chrysler building in New York City.

It was an opulent style, attributed as a reaction to the forced austerity during the years of World War I. By the late 1930s — the decade perhaps most strongly associated with it today — it was in its Streamline or Streamline Moderne phase. This followed manufacturing and streamlining techniques arising from science and mass production. After World War II, the International Style, devoid of all decoration, dominated. Not until the late 1960s did people begin to rediscover Art Deco as a symbol for vigor and optimism of the Roaring Twenties.

Carol Hall, an ex-patriot American who has lived in New Zealand for 13 years, bought 10 outfits for the festivities. On Friday night, she was clad in a beige dress and fur stole and a snappy little brown hat. Her "gentleman friend," Bruce Cato, dressed in a tux and bowler hat. For Saturday, Carol chose an outfit all in white for a ride through town during Automobilia, an Art Deco vintage car rally with more than 150 participating vehicles. And on Sunday, she donned a fur-trimmed off-white dress for the Gatsby picnic in the park along Marine Parade.

"You've picked the best weekend to be here," Carol tells me. "Everybody has fun. Everybody looks fantastic." It's a good thing to return to the past once in a while, she adds. "We've lost a lot of style."