Māori fashion entrepreneur Kharl WiRepa (Te Arawa) has just launched Ohomairangi, a fashion show aimed at breaking down colonisation barriers in the fashion industry and building up indigenous world views of art, design and beauty.
The show presents those views through an indigenous and asks: What is true beauty?
“We have been too colonised in the fashion and beauty industry and people don’t recognise that so much as beauty being a colonised thing,”, WiRepa said.
He hoped the Ohomairangi Matariki Art and Fashion show would break cultural stereotypes, and show that to be indigenous was to be beautiful.
The global fashion industry powerhouse is Europe and he said Māori, along with other indigenous peoples, were unable to express themselves in the same way or their work was not seen as serious.
He believes Māori fashion gets put into a box of indigenous creatives “almost as tokenism”.
“The industry has been toxic like that but we are really glad to come tonight and express who we are as tangata whenua,” WiRepa said.
True beauty deep within
MC Mercia Yates has been a strong supporter of Te Arawa lipstick and high-heeled glamour fashion events for some time.
“All of those beautiful things that lie within a human, I saw them come out. I saw unity, love, and caring for each other, all those types of things backstage and in front. That’s where true beauty lies, deep within,” Yates said.
Fourteen-year-old Te Owai Edmonds from Maketū is known on social media as a really good pig hunter but she and her younger sister Danielle swapped their hunting gear to showcase Māori fashion in the show.
Danielle Edmonds was excited and nervous at the same time. But she said she wanted to be a model in the future. And Te Owai was happy to enjoy the experience even if, at the end of the event, there was no wild pig to take home to the whānau, because she still had a great time.
“I was really happy to see all the people who came to support including the Queen of Rarotonga,” she said.
Queen finds Rotorua fashion ‘amazing’
Pā Tepaeru Teariki Upokotini Marie Ariki from Takitimu Rarotonga was the main guest and received a beautiful korowai from the people of Te Arawa, which was handed over during a display of poi by Wikitoria Mauriotepoi and daughter.
“I am very proud to receive such a gift. My heart is full and I am humbled to be invited by the wonderful people of Te Arawa, such amazing fashion here in Rotorua,” Pā Ariki said.
More than 300 people attended the event to see seven designers showing off their garments.
For some of the 40 models, it was the first time on the catwalk and their ages ranged from five years old to one in her 80s.
WiRepa says the beauty of Te Arawa is its manākitanga and its whanaungatanga.
“That’s the way they love each other and they are a whānau community, which has been expressed in Rotorua tourism for centuries, and that is what we are - world famous for manākitangata - and that is what we will continue to do from now until forever,” he said.
WiPepa will be taking a group of Maōri fashion designers to Europe next year.