Last week our Poutama team were fortunate enough to celebrate and enjoy Māori excellence on the fashion runway at New Zealand Fashion Week: Kahuria.
NZ Fashion Week has returned in 2023 after a four-year hiatus, with a focus on local Māori talent. We were proud to tautoko Kiri Nathan, and attend her show which opened the event – the first Māori designer to do so.
The five-day event, which ran from 29 August to 2 September in Tāmaki Makaurau, marked a clear shift from previous years, with many Indigenous designers holding standalone shows.
Other Māori fashion shows we were proud to support were Campbell Luke, Kharl Wirepa, KaistorSt, and MIROMODA which revealed several emerging and talented Māori designers.
This year’s fashion week was also the first in partnership with local tangata whenua group Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei (the ‘people of the land’ of central Auckland), who gifted the name Kahuria (which translates to ‘to put on clothes’) to the event.
