{"id":570395,"date":"2026-08-16T03:22:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T03:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/570395\/"},"modified":"2026-08-16T03:22:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T03:22:12","slug":"a-century-of-weaving-knowledge-to-be-brought-to-the-runway-at-fashion-week-te-ao-maori-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/570395\/","title":{"rendered":"A century of weaving knowledge to be brought to the runway at Fashion Week \u2013 Te Ao M\u0101ori News"},"content":{"rendered":"

I whakaputahia tuatahia t\u0113nei atikara e RNZ<\/a><\/p>\n

The New Zealand M\u0101ori Arts and Crafts Institute (NZMACI) is bringing the arts of the whare pora, or school of weaving, to the runway at New Zealand Fashion Week this year.<\/p>\n

As part of K\u0101hui Collective\u2019s 2026 programme, six woven pieces created through a collaboration between designer Shona T\u0101whiao and NZMACI\u2019s Te Rito o Rotowhio, National Weaving School, will feature in T\u0101whiao\u2019s collection, The House of Harakeke, at Fashion Week on Thursday, 20 August.<\/p>\n

NZMACI is also celebrating a milestone this year, being one hundred years since the M\u0101ori Arts and Crafts Act 1926 established schools dedicated to the study and practice of M\u0101ori arts and crafts.<\/p>\n

Tumu (Head) of Te Rito o Rotowhio, Cori Marsters (Te Arawa, Te Whakat\u014dhea), told RNZ he built a relationship with T\u0101whiao and K\u0101hui Collective founder and designer Kiri Nathan, and through that were able to collaborate and bring more weavers into the fashion world.<\/p>\n

\"\"Designer Shona T\u0101whiao’s collection, The House of Harakeke, will feature at New Zealand Fashion Week 2026.Supplied\/Te Puia <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re heavy hitters, Kiri Nathan and Shona T\u0101whiao are internationally renowned, but I was probably surprised on how well we got on so quickly. I\u2019d like to mihi to them for sort of letting me in to share space. If you were to ask me, Kiri, for Damehood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marsters said he hopes this is a beginning rather than a one-off.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough this might sound like a new thing, stepping into the fashion space, whare pora was always the house of fashion and textiles to our ancestors. So we\u2019re just an echo, I guess, of the past and just making sure that echo carries on.\u201d<\/p>\n

T\u0101whiao (Ng\u0101i Te Rangi, Whakat\u014dhea, Te Wh\u0101nau-\u0101-Apanui) and Nathan (Ng\u0101puhi, Ng\u0101ti Hine, Ng\u0101ti Hau\u0101, Ng\u0101ti Maru and Ng\u0101ti Paoa) spent a week-long w\u0101nanga with Marsters at the National Weaving School at Te Puia in Rotorua at the end of May.<\/p>\n

The collaboration began with the harvesting of harakeke.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe prepare our materials, and we let it dry, and it dries to a creamy white, and that\u2019s our canvas. You can dye green, but we prefer to dry it white. Once it\u2019s dried bone colour, we\u2019ll heat the pot up, get it boiling, rolling, and add a dye in it,\u201d Marsters said.<\/p>\n

For this project, they used a commercial dye, and once the harakeke is added to the boiling water, it only takes five minutes until it\u2019s complete, he said.<\/p>\n

\"\"A close up of designer Shona T\u0101whiao’s collection, The House of Harakeke, which will be shown at New Zealand Fashion Week 2026.Supplied\/Te Puia <\/p>\n

\u201cIn the New Zealand M\u0101ori Arts and Crafts Institute, we are steeped in the traditional dyeing practice. We do contemporary dyes, but it\u2019s not our first port of call. So it\u2019s good to sort of bring our whare pora into that space again, because it\u2019s quite instant.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith paru (mud), when you dye black with the paru, it takes a day. Two different worlds coming together in a good way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hoping the collaboration will inspire the tauira to take their weaving skills further in their careers. The collection is called The House of Harakeke, which has a connection to Te Rito o Rotowhio and the harakeke that it\u2019s made from,\u201d T\u0101whiao said.<\/p>\n

For T\u0101whiao, the relationship between fashion and M\u0101ori weaving also challenges conventional ideas about where high-end fashion is made.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Europe, designers have ateliers and staff who make their collections, and this is what it was like being at the New Zealand M\u0101ori Arts and Crafts Institute for me at Whare Pora Te Rito o Rotowhio.\u201d<\/p>\n

N\u0101 Pokere Paewai n\u014d RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I whakaputahia tuatahia t\u0113nei atikara e RNZ The New Zealand M\u0101ori Arts and Crafts Institute (NZMACI) is bringing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1438,23753,111,43,139,69,281229],"class_list":["post-570395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-fashion","tag-maori","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-raranga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}