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Overview
Lindah Lepou is an award-winning artist, of Samoan and New Zealand descent, who works across music, film, costume design and fashion.
Over the last 25 years she has forged a reputation for her conceptually driven, one off garments, in which she combines Samoan and European influences, including her identity as fa'afafine. She has termed her style ‘Pacific Couture’. Lepou’s work is reflective of her heritage, beliefs and ability to work in the vā, the space in-between which she inhabits, a space in-between genders, cultures, ideologies and worlds.
In 2022 she received the inaugural Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi “Toi Kō Iriiri” queer arts award in celebration of an outstanding artist or group of artists whose practice has a meaningful impact on the queer community.
Obviously Organic
Lindah Lepou designed Bushygaga for the 'Obviously Organic' category of the Cult-Couture Fashion Awards Show in 2011. The Cult-Couture awards, which combined fashion, music and dance, were established by the Manukau City Council in 2001 as part of the Southside Arts Festival. The event ran until 2014.
Lepou won both the 'Obviously Organic' category and the Supreme Award for Bushygaga.
Inspired by the princesses of pop
Lepou drew inspiration for Bushygaga from ‘pop goddesses - Beyonce, Rihanna and Lady Gaga’ who ‘were dominating the airwaves with their powerful feminine energy’. She comments:
This garment responds to the historical feminine archetype through the ages. This is my homage to 'feminism' and the reincarnation of the feminine energy over time, surviving and remaining alive despite its clash with its masculine counterpart. Pop Culture from the west, is the current platform that projects this feminine icon through art, film, music and technology. Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Rihanna, etc have dominated these channels with their uniqueness, beauty, diversity, power and embrace the mysteriousness of her body, emotion and intuition in all of us.
Lindah made the bodysuit first, padding the hips to emphasis the body, and giving it an armour-like quality. On finishing the bodysuit, she realised it needed something else, and decided to make a coat.
She designed the coat as a half circle, so that appears full on the body. Its covering of flax stripes further emphasises its fullness and roundness. When worn, it looks like a big round, bushy ball - hence the ‘Bushy’ part of the name.
The garment is named after the pop musician Lady Gaga, who made her debut in 2008, and quickly attracted attention for her costuming, championing of difference and her outspoken support for LGBTQI+ communities.
Lepou sees the humour in the garment as being akin to pop music and pop culture – it’s purely about fun.
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