The Kāhui Collective is reindigenising fashion in Aotearoa, bringing tikanga and cultural storytelling to the NZ Fashion Week runway for the first time as a rōpu.

Kāhui Collective made its debut on the Kahuria (NZ Fashion Week) runway this week, with six Māori and indigenous designers expressing their identity, culture and whakapapa through contemporary fashion.

Founded on cultural and business excellence, the collective brings together individual collections under a shared kaupapa, featuring designers Mitchell Vincent, Nichola Te Kiri, Jacob Tamehana Coutie (J’AKE) and Temesia Tuicaumia (Temesia Co).

“Any fashion designer, any creative really, that is drawing on their culture has a unique voice and a unique place of creativity,” says Kiri Nathan, founder of Kāhui Collective.

“They also have a unique responsibility to their cultures. They’re not just making a top, a skirt, a pair of pants. Everything they make holds stories and connection to whakapapa.”

Te ao hoahoa kākahu me te ao tōrangapū

Tāmaki Makaurau’s Shed 10 was packed with supporters – fashion enthusiasts, artists and even politicians dressed in their best – all gathered to witness the highest level of Māori and indigenous fashion on a national stage.

The opening collection was by Nichola Te Kiri and modelled by Te Pāti Māori’s Oriini Kaipara, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi and Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke.

“Her whole collection is based on wāhine Māori - Māori women who have affected change, positive change, [who] have been leaders in different areas and times,” Nathan adds.

“Calling in those three, we had a conversation about whether it would be too political. Fashion is political. Everything is political.”

He tūāpapa mā ngā whetū maiangi

In the inaugural 2009 Miromoda competition, Kiri Nathan won the Emerging Designer category, earning her first shot to showcase at New Zealand Fashion Week - a platform for many of Aotearoa’s rising fashion talents.

Now, with Kāhui Collective taking the NZ Fashion Week stage, it raises the question - is this the next evolution of that legacy?

“Kāhui Collective is significant for many reasons. One, because it’s not just a collective or a cluster of people. It’s not a competition. It’s not a promoter promoting a kaupapa. This is us working for us.”

Now one of Aotearoa’s most celebrated fashion designers, Nathan became the first Māori designer to open NZ Fashion Week in 2023. But early in her career, her work wasn’t always welcomed.

“[People] told me that my clothes should be in some old museum in the back of England, where they would never be seen,” Nathan admits.

“The critique was really hard - so hard we had to crack up laughing and thought, ‘Oh, okay, this isn’t it.’”

That experience became the seed for Kāhui Collective.

“The idea of creating safe spaces for our people and for our creativity.”

Today, Kāhui Collective includes around 40 indigenous kaihoahoa, all working to bring indigenous worldviews, customs and stories to the world through fashion.

“I feel that there has been a shift and it’s a positive shift. And I feel like there’s been growth within those six designers that showed. [Ka] ara ake tetahi, ka ara ake te katoa.”