THE JOURNAL
The New MANAAKI Collection Is A Celebration Of Māori Culture (And Growing Up In The 1990s)
When translated into English from Māori, “manaaki” means to “cherish and sustain for future generations”. For Ms Kat Tua, the founder of the eponymous brand, it’s so much more than that. The designer grew up in New Zealand and, after attending fashion school, moved to Australia, where she found her footing in fashion.
It was her decision to relocate back to her native country, a few years and design stints later, that allowed her to reconnect with her Māori roots – and find her calling. MANAAKI, to her, meant digging deep into the country’s duality, one that markets the culture of its indigenous people to the rest of the world for tourism purposes, but also sees those very people struggle under the dominant Western influence.
The brand’s AW24 collection, titled Aotearoa (“land of the long white cloud”, the original Māori name for New Zealand), was inspired by Tua’s perception of her Māori heritage as a child growing up in the 1990s. “I looked back at that fantasy that you create for yourself as a child,” she says. “That naivety, that insecurity within yourself that recognises the prejudices against your culture, that sees the negative stuff about Māori on the news. All of that stuff that you think is normal growing up. But as you get older, you kind of go, ‘Oh, I know what that is!’ – and I didn’t work out how hard it is when your culture isn’t recognised in your own country till much later in life.”
That coming-of-age, carefree 1990s spirit comes by way of relaxed silhouettes and casual styling. “I thought about riding bikes, hanging out at the beach, and that sort of young spirit that allows you to make the best of a bad situation, and still create your own little bubble,” Tua says.
Recognisable cultural symbolism takes centre stage, too. Traditional Māori twining weaving patterns (tāniko) are found anywhere from knitwear, vests and jersey styles, while taniwha (a mythical Māori monster that features in all the brand’s collections) – “my own version of the dragons that were popular in the 1990s,” says Tua – is printed on a graphic camp-collar shirt.
Elsewhere, a long-sleeved tee is printed with “Whatungarongaro te tangata toitū te whenua”, which translates to “a man disappears from sight, the land remains”. The significance of this proverb speaks to MANAAKI’s very essence of “cherishing the land we live on and passing it onto the next generations,” Tua says.
Foliage inspired by Aotearoa’s native plants decorate the sleeves alongside dandelions, which, to Tua, represent the harmonious ecosystem of the country’s flora and fauna, but also of its indigenous population with its settlers. Jeans are ripped and baggy, and some pairs even feature tāniko embroidered inserts.
There’s a shirt printed with huia birds, a now-extinct native species sacred to the Māori people. This “lost treasure” serves as a sort of metaphor for MANAAKI and the Māori culture itself, something that needs to be celebrated, preserved and nurtured for those who come next.