Cultural cool

Wiremu Barriball. Photo / Supplied

As the overall winner of the inaugural Miromoda Maori fashion awards, sportswear designer Wiremu Barriball has won the opportunity to show his collection at the 2009 Air New Zealand Fashion Week.

It's a prize the 35-year-old describes as "mind-blowing" and one he admits also makes him feel something of an imposter.

"I feel a little bit ignorant because I don't class myself as a fashion designer. I don't think I've really paid my dues," he says.

Although Barriball has no formal fashion training, his experience as a tattooist and graphic artist has been invaluable in creating his Tu Ake range of footwear, pressure sportswear and sunglasses.

"I've come from a background of tattooing and doing a lot of Maori-inspired tattoo work so I guess it just naturally transferred onto the designs that I do."

Barriball, who was raised in Otaki but is now based in Porirua, says that while his Maori heritage strongly informs his brand, the influence is derivative rather than literal.

"It's design and motif iconography inspired by Maori traditions."

Distinctive moko-style Aotearoa-influenced designs swirl across acetate sunglasses, compression wear, cross-trainers and low-cut street shoes. Not restricted to the shoes' uppers, the graphics also extend around to the soles - some of which boast kowhaiwhai patterns in moulded rubber. "We take our design right from the top right underneath to the sole. Instead of getting a generic sole we've actually gone all out and designed every inch of the shoe."

Barriball believes his approach to the creative process helps imbue his range with a point of difference. "What I look at is the shape of the shoe and then try and complement the shape of the shoe with the design ... Looking more at the object and then applying the design to the object as opposed to doing the design and seeing what it can fit on."

It's only in hindsight that he realises it's a discipline that has its roots in his work as a tattooist. "It's been aesthetically designed for that object which is exactly the process I do for a person if I was to tattoo them. And that's all come about, I guess you'd say, subconsciously."

Part of his Miromoda prize package was a trip to Toronto, Canada, to show his collection alongside First Nations designers at the Planet IndigenUs festival in August.

Barriball was buoyed by the reception there. Not only were the references to New Zealand's tattoo culture readily recognised but the Tu Ake shoes were coveted by hardcore and knowledgeable shoe collectors, some of whom literally begged to be allowed to purchase one of the strictly-not-for-sale prototypes.

Barriball is still rather in awe of the flurry of attention the win has afforded him. "It's gone from me just being in total lockdown basically and not getting out there at all ... to this whole thing where people want to know what's going on and what Tu Ake's about."

The surge in interest in Maori fashion designers can be attributed to the recent awards held by Miromoda - the newly launched Indigenous Maori Fashion Apparel Board. According to Miromoda's Ata Te Kanawa, the board's core aim is to ensure that Maori stakeholders are able to secure their piece of the lucrative New Zealand fashion industry.

"It has a very determined commercial focus," she says.

"Our concentration was on Maori fashion designers and there was certainly no expectation that they use Maori iconology."

Mt Wellington-based fashion designer, Kiri Nathan, who won Miromoda's Emerging Designer section says that her subtly influenced special occasion garments have "the essence of Maori running through them. To be perfectly honest, I think you'd have to be a New Zealander to pick it up."

After graduating from the Manukau Institute of Technology with a Diploma in Visual Arts in 1996, Nathan spent twelve years as an Air New Zealand flight attendant and only recently has followed her dream of becoming a fashion designer. Last year the 36-year-old was the supreme winner of the Westfield Style Pasifika fashion awards.

Her one-off red-carpet gowns, which will be shown at ANZFW, are always accompanied by a contemporary korowai (cloak). Haute Couture section winner Keri Wanoa and husband Hemi Sundgren of Waitara have collaborated on their WHIRI clothing label since 2006. Wanoa, 34, describes the range as "High Street wear - basics without being basic".

Her winning ensemble was Oho Mouri - a wool and leather bodice paired with a feather and leather mini skirt.

* In addition to showing her debut collection with Miromoda at ANZFW, Wanoa has been invited to participate in the New Generation show.