Miramoda FW '09 - review

Miramoda is an organisation founded to advance the quality and status of Maori fashion design. The show featured eight highly regarded Maori designers, each showing a number of pieces in their collections.

Samara Vercoe

Rerehau and Tutina

Samara Vercoe: ‘The Space Between’ reflects the grieving process through fashionable mourning etiquette of the 1920’s. Moody blues and greys featured throughout using silks, cotton lycra and sheer fabric. Harem pants and body suits were tie-dyed using only black die to add complexity to the sombre tonal palette.

Rerehau and Tutina: ‘Substance and Style’ showed well designed garments for men with structured tailoring to full length coats pulled in at the waist via wrap around obi belts. Garments featured details of paua, wood, leather and Maori design.

Junette Ward and Liz Adams

Keri Wanoa

Junette Ward and Liz Adams: ‘Inspired by New Zealand’s Central Plateau’, fabrics were all natural consisting of linen, hemp, silk and cotton. The colour palette inspired by flora and landscape surrounding the Whanganui River and Tongariro National Park was made up of rusty bronzes, muted earth tones, creams and splashes of blue.

Keri Wanoa: ‘Basic Spatial Design’ featured black silk jump suits cinched at the waist, sheer fabrics, plenty of blue and some intricately detailed sleeves in woven leather or knitted thick wools. A standout piece was a combination leather and feather miniskirt – not one to wear around the streets of Auckland but a well designed piece of art in itself.

Shane Hansen

Kiri Nathan

Wiremu Barriball

Shane Hansen: ‘Embracing the Beauty of Aotearoa’ and Bianca Walford Collier: ‘Fruitfulness’ featured clean, crisp white and navy tees for both men and women adorned with gold, green and silver. Bianca’s mark was stamped with a Tiki on light weight hoodies in mandarin and grey colours.

Kiri Nathan: ‘Collaboration of Cultures’ is a reflection of both her Maori and European heritage and fuses traditional techniques and methods of construction such as raranga (weaving) and korowai (traditional Maori cloak) with contemporary fabrics and colour. Her stunning gowns feature combinations of pleating, smocking, beading and fringing to create gorgeous texture and decadent flowing layers.

Wiremu Barriball: ‘Inspired by Tradition, Driven by Passion’ showed some unique athletic pieces highlighting Aotearoan urban culture. Bright coloured tee’s and sneaker teamed with printed denim jeans on athletic male models were welcomed by the crowd.

Attendees were treated to an opening and closing singing performance. The rendition of ‘Time to Say Goodbye’ was rather moving. Each one of the designers took to the catwalk with one of their creations to the applause of an audience and the spectacular top notes reached by the operatic duo.

- Janelle Rennie

Images ©Air New Zealand Fashion Week/Michael Ng