Lana Lopesi, That Bloody Woman author: It's okay to be brown and bougie

Lana Lopesi. Photo / Supplied

Earrings were always a site of rebellion for me. By the time I was 10 I had three piercings on each of my earlobes, so I could wear three pairs — six earrings in total — at any given time. This was a nightmare when I was at school, where you were only permitted one pair, but even with the constant fear of being caught it was worth it. I thought I was so bad. Since then I've also had my tragus pierced and three helix piercings (on the cartilage part on top of the ear), because when your whole lobe is full so early, where else is there for you to go? Adorning my ears was a pastime of crafted rebellion.

Now, I have 20-plus pairs of what I would call Pacific earrings. They're a combination of materials — seashell, faux tortoiseshell, clay, metals and fabric. They range from minimal to huge, discreet to very bright. A pair for every occasion. The tortoiseshell hoops get good mileage because they go with anything; they're acceptable for my day job, a conference or a nightclub — or those days where those spaces blend into each other. Then there is a simple pair of drop earrings with a loop of metal and five white seashells threaded on. These are equally versatile, but I wear them when I want the spiritual homecoming comfort of having something from the ocean by my ear. I have some in clay by Auckland-based company Aolele that are any combination of colours and shapes; a black-and-grey variety for my all-black outfits; and a bright pink-and-yellow combination which also goes well with black.

Fashion has been an important fixture of Pacific diaspora life here in Aotearoa, with each generation and each era having a trend of their own. Within the past four or so years, a burgeoning Pacific earring culture has, in particular, been solidifying for women in the diaspora. Shells, seeds and weaving have a solid place on the ears, sold amidst ripped blue jeans and retro Harley-Davidson T-shirts. I knew the trend was real and mainstream when I saw Asos was selling faux-tortoiseshell hoops — a material I had first known from the coveted bangles sold at Apia's markets (after the ban on using the real tortoiseshell). These bangles would be brought home after some relative's trip to Samoa, only to live forever in the dark of the bottom drawer. The earring trend feels like a new phase in Pacific adornment, embraced by women, femme-identifying folk or just whoever is keen to look a little cute, and is a part of a wider reclamation of Pacific culture, a renaissance of Moana cool, that can be seen in a variety of aesthetics and contexts, from urban wear to professional.

When the current Pacific earring trend hit, however, I wasn't an early adopter. "Cultural wear" was something I associated with things like church, family occasions, a feeling of cringe; my grandparents coming back from Samoa with a new puletasi that would be stuffed in the back of a cupboard until a family occasion, normally a funeral, summoned it out; occasionally a forced performance or item. I associated Island fashion with those familial situations - and it was definitely not my clothing of choice. I thought that Pacific fashion outside these situations was worn generally by those who didn't have other ways to access their culture, so dress became of particular importance to them, a type of performativity or symbolism in lieu of something else.

I remember when a friend came over to visit days after returning from their homeland. They had brought back with them a huge bundle of cultural swag — adornments for their hair, flags, T-shirts, hoodies, jewellery, you name it. When they left I said to myself, It's cute how much they value that stuff and how it has been incorporated into their aesthetic. But I also wondered why it wasn't an aesthetic I shared. Fundamentally, I just didn't think it was cool. I defended my refusal of Pacific fashion as refusing cultural performativity, but this was combined with an actual devaluing of Pacific fashion.

This shifted when I found myself in a string of international settings and at international speaking events. I can't remember what I'd previously worn to these kinds of things — I guess something understated, because no great outfit comes to mind. But I found myself caught out when I was in Taiwan and was asked to speak at an Indigenous design conference. I didn't realise that part of the conference was everyone attending in their cultural dress; and of course not only had I not taken anything to Taiwan, I didn't own a single piece of "Pacific fashion". I was bailed out by the only other Samoan I knew in Taipei who, thanks to a diplomatic career, did see the value in cultural attire and had a mena dress I could borrow for the conference. Seeing everyone at that conference dressed in their cultural garb and dripping with pride was eye-opening.

If expressions of fashion can be acts of self-definition, protest and cultural reclamation within a Pacific diasporic context here in Aotearoa, the same is true of tatau like taulima and tauvae (arm and ankle bands) and tualima (the traditional women's marks on the top of the hand and the fingers). Earrings as a form of body adornment connect to other expressions of body adornment, such as tatau, in both its customary and contemporary forms. Both can be interpreted as ways of holding on to culture away from homelands, which may otherwise feel very distant, and reconstructing that on the body.

In 2020, I got my tualima done by Tyla Vaeau, a woman who picked up the traditional tools under the tutelage of the Suluape family. I remarked to Tyla that tualima today are like the taulima and tauvae of the 2000s: a clear new trend in the diaspora, this time predominantly for women, choosing customary tatau practices. Tualima are unhideable. Like earrings that frame your face, they are brazen, a huge-ass middle finger to expectations of "appropriateness" and the limitations of cultural expression. Pacific reclamations of culture through glam aesthetics, allowed into and beyond their professional sphere, are part of Indigenous statements the world over that combine measured protest and luxe performance with a touch of "f*** you" mixed in.

When it comes to earrings, however - and in particular my beloved faux-tortoiseshell hoops, the form is not a Pacific customary fashion revived for today. Instead they are a style adopted from elsewhere, influenced by our contemporary environments, identity constructions and relational affinities, and remade with references to our material culture. Specifically, I think many of the earring trends at play in Aotearoa New Zealand and the Pacific pick up on a glamour aesthetic that has a particular political history in the context of Chicanx, black and brown women in the United States.

Puerto Rican fashion writer Bianca Nieves writes on hoops that, "There's something about moving away from your homeland that activates a longing, a need to connect with your ancestors. I wear them as a reminder that I can decolonise myself and my mind every morning when I get dressed. Plus, besides pulling my outfits together, I've discovered they have an extra, unexpected magic power. Wearing them makes me feel the same way they did when I was young — like I am home."

While I'm sceptical that a cute pair of earrings is enough to perform the ongoing acts needed for decolonisation, there is something tangibly powerful in reclaiming parts of oneself. I know the superpower that Nieves writes about from my own experiences of popping in a pair of faux-tortoiseshell hoops, or a recently bought pair of gold hoops made in the form of coral. They give you a charge that can pull you through a tough morning or help you take up space in an intimidating room. It also puts the moana or the fanua — whether literally or symbolically — next to your ears, like the ancestors can have a direct line to you.

However, acknowledging the origins of borrowed items like hoop earrings is important too, and helps us to see that without an acknowledgement our refashioning of hoops — whether they be faux tortoiseshell, wrapped in tapa, or faux bamboo with the word 'seki' in the middle — implicates us in a longer legacy of appropriation of American and black or Chicanx fashion.

I also think it's important to consider the role of class in our statement fashion. What does it mean that only some of us in the diaspora or "actual country" can afford tatau or fashion accessories? Pacific earrings and other items of identity fashion are common in workplaces for arts workers, public servants and educators. In a recent New York Times article called "Bold Red Lipstick Is a Political Uniform, Too", political reporter Jennifer Medina writes about a number of women of colour in American politics and their fashion choices for the recent Democratic National Convention, including Yvanna Cancela, who wore "the reddest of lips and biggest of hoops"; Deb Haaland's dangling turquoise earrings; and Michelle Obama's "bracelet-size hoop earrings". These fashion choices are "expanding the definition of what it means to look like a politician"; they're a form of reclaiming what has "long been considered trivial, or a liability". The article quotes scholar Rhonda Garelick, who argues that acknowledging glamour as part of making a statement, and using it as a politically powerful tool, is and always has been a profoundly feminist act.

When I think about a diaspora woman wearing Pacific earrings, I ultimately picture a Pacific professional who works in government, the arts, tertiary education, corporate organisations or professions like law. These are environments that are predominantly Western — both structurally and in terms of those who work in the sectors; environments where there is a real power in adorning oneself in a cultural power suit and not assimilating into a sea of black or navy blazers. These are also sectors that enable people to be upwardly mobile; where they can afford to adorn themselves culturally and professionally in intentional ways.

For the Pacific professional, earrings and other glam signifiers like bold lip colour mark a way of bringing identity into the sphere of corporate attire. They seem important in an era where more Moana women are entering these kinds of workplaces and want to be their whole selves within these spaces. But they also signal a divide between those with and without class privilege, those with and without Western training and education, those with and without the time and space to think about cultural dress. Between those who are brown, and those who are brown and bougie.

There is a growing brown middle class, and I don't think it's too cynical to say that it can be symbolised by Pacific earrings and tuālima. Being brown and bougie, and acknowledging that fact, is perhaps the diaspora dream-come-true of the migrant generations working hard to give themselves, their children and grandchildren better lives. In that sense, being brown and bougie is part of a working-class aspiration, and manifestations of diaspora fashion can be tied to class mobility under capitalism. Looking back, I see that what I think is cool has changed, for sure, but so has my ability to afford diaspora fashion, to support Moana earring-makers, and my need to bring little cultural protests with me as I move up and through spaces not used to many islanders within them.

I noticed the eruption of Pacific earrings in the world because it was a communal thing; a fashion statement that women and femme-identifying folk were suddenly wearing en masse. I want to reclaim the Pacific earring — so easy to dismiss — for the politics that it holds. In a context where Pacific women are encouraged to assimilate into Western patriarchal norms, encouraged within our own communities to be meek, plain and unnoticeable, claiming earrings and taking up space is a big deal. Part of that, though, is the need to examine one's place (my own place) within the woke diaspora; the need to acknowledge aspects of class privilege, taking up space and upward mobility, or diasporic changes that the 'actual country' may look askance at.

It's okay to be brown and bougie. But let's also ask ourselves what that means.

Edited extract from Bloody Woman (Bridget Williams Books, $40)