What are we really paying for when we buy fashion?
At NZ Fashion Week’s inaugural Indigenous Fashion Symposium, 16 Indigenous designers from Aotearoa, Alaska, Australia, Fiji, Rotuma, Taiwan and India gathered to share their knowledge, craft and perspectives on the value of their kākahu.
Kiri Nathan, Kaiwhakahaere of Kāhui Collective, says the symposium was created to give Indigenous designers a platform.
“Their voices are so important and they don’t often get to voice those opinions in mainstream environments. So building this symposium, I felt was really necessary so that we can hear those voices and we can have that rhetoric and that narrative.”
Kua tae mai ngā kaihoahoa iwi taketake o te ao
One of the designers is Bobby Brower, from Utqiagvik, Alaska, owner of Arctic Luxe, creating traditional and contemporary parkas for the extreme Arctic climate.
“We make them to keep you warm up to 50 below temperatures. And so living in the Arctic, it’s all about keeping people warm,” Brower says.
“I fuse like high fashion and my culture, keeping people warm together.”
Yuma Taru, a renowned weaver from Taiwan, has spent 35 years researching traditional weaving.
One of her traditional garments is made entirely from shell beads and can take up to six years to create. It retails for around $30,000 NZD.
“This one is all made out of shell beads; it’s for the most important occasions for attire,” she says.
“This kind of work has disappeared in Taiwan for over 100 years.”
Taru says she was inspired to bring the piece to Aotearoa after seeing similar garments at the Auckland War Memorial Museum.
“I saw many similar from Austronesian countries; [I] wanted to bring this one to let everyone know, we’ve got this too.”
Te wāriu o te kākahu taketake
For Brower, the time and skill involved in making Indigenous clothing is reflected in the price.
“My parkas start at 5,000 US dollars, and then they go up from there.”
She sources fur locally and internationally, but makes each parka herself.
“I order out of Canada, so I’m ordering materials in, but then I’m like cutting everything out and sewing everything together myself.”
She describes Indigenous fashion as slow fashion.
“It takes many, many hours to make one piece. [With] one parka it usually takes me anywhere from 40 hours or longer to create.”
Nathan says the price reflects that work.
“Manufacturing is different for all of the designers. And so the prices, it just reflects the work that’s gone into it.”
The designers say the work also helps keep traditional knowledge and practices alive.
He tuari i ngā wheako a ngā kaihoahoa iwi taketake
Nathan says she learns from the different experiences of Indigenous designers from around the world.
“I know what it is to be a Māori designer based in Aotearoa, but I have no concept of what it is to be an international designer based in remote areas called to my island.”
“So how do you create a label?” That’s not the hard part. The hard part is: how do you maintain that label? How do you make a business that provides for your farmland? from that small isolated place?”
On Thursday, the designers will bring their work to the Kāhui Collective runway - a sold-out show and only the second Kāhui Collective show at NZFW.
“That’s an incredible reflection of how interested people are in coming and seeing these designers.”
Brower says she is excited to connect with the other designers.
“We’re so connected, but we’re from different parts of the world, and it’s where our values are the same, and we can really connect.”
Kāhui Collective also has a pop-up store at Shed 10, featuring Indigenous kākahu from 50 different designers available to purchase.
