”Niho Fusion” pays tribute to the original Māori Fashion designers, our Traditional weavers.
It references the effect colonisation had on Māori clothing as Māori quickly adopted the blanket in place of traditional kākahu. This can be seen throughout images of 19th century photographer Alfred Burton, who travelled through Te Rohe Potae, the Tauramrunui and King Country backblocks, taking images of Māori in their natural environment.
It references the effect colonisation had on Māori clothing as Māori quickly adopted the blanket in place of traditional kākahu. This can be seen throughout images of 19th century photographer Alfred Burton, who travelled through Te Rohe Potae, the Tauramrunui and King Country backblocks, taking images of Māori in their natural environment.
As a result of Māori discarding their tradtonal clothing, in favour of the various new fabrics, by the 1950’s,the art of weaving was almost lost in some areas. Efforts were made by the likes of Dame Rangimarie Hetet, who went outside of the norm by teaching people from outside of her iwi, the art of mahi raranga in an effort to ensure the surival of our traditional weaving techniques.
Niho Fusion acknowledges the past and asserts a positive approach to recalling our history by reconstructng the tartan pattern, seen in many of the blankets, using a popular traditional weaving pattern known as ”Niho” .
Niho Fusion asserts a cultural narrative to modern fashion for todays wahine.
