Third-year fashion design student Tia Tahau has showcased a new collection inspired by her ancestor Te Rangi Tāhau at AUT’s Fashion Graduate Show over the weekend.
Tahau says her journey in creating the collection, named Te Rangi Tāhau, started during her discovery of her tupuna Te Rangi Tāhau, “working my way from who he was as a person in the Māori world and then who I am as a person in the modern world.”
Te Rangi Tāhau, of Ngāti Tūwharetoa and Ngāti Hineuru was a chief and priest in the18th century. He was imprisoned on the Chatham Islands alongside Te Kooti and escaped to become one of his most loyal followers.
“There was a lot of cultural mixture happening between the Māori and Pākeha and I think he is a person who stands as this symbol of how you can be Māori and integrate into society with Pākeha but still hold your protocols and tikanga close to you,” Tahau says.
Tahau says her collection is not a reflection of what Māori design looks from a Western perspective.
“I’ve looked at the protocols of tikanga Māori and imbued that into how I’ve made the collection. In a way it’s a reflection of how my ancestor Te Rangitāhau integrated into society with Pākeha, she says.
“I want to show people that Māori culture can be modern and Māori designers can imbue their own identity in their design without it having to appease to a certain standard or of stereotype.”
Tahau took inspiration from traditional practices like using harakeke to create her designs.
“I learned that to preserve muka or harakeke, they would traditionally put it in a mud bath and let it sit in there and that would let it preserve the harakeke from going off again.”
She used the same practice when making a bag, except using tar.
“With the tar it’s kind of the same process of dipping it and preserving the sculptural object.”
Tahau also created bone structures, reflective of how Māori traditionally wear bone or pounamu taonga.
“I wanted to look at it in a new way and how with our pounamu… sometimes they’re made of bone and I wanted to represent that through my work as a recreation of what a bone pendant is to me.”
Tahau also took inspiration from other Māori designers, including Jake Studios and Lontessa, who create designs that showcase their Māoritanga in subtle ways.
“There was a point where someone had come to [Mike] after a show and asked ‘Where is the Māori design in this?’ she says.
“It doesn’t need to look like a Māori design through a Western lens. It can be anything that you want it to be as long as you are Māori yourself and you are making it with your own hands.”
After graduation, Tahau will continue making clothes and hopes to collaborate with other designers.
“I want creatives of Māori descent, Pasifika descent to be able to look at this design and be like,’ I can make clothing which is representative of myself, of my culture, of my ancestry but is also still sitting in the modern world - it doesn’t need to be associated with what we understand is traditional’.”