item details
Ms Moana Eisele; artist; 2011; Hawaii
Overview
Nake'u Awai
Nake'u Awai is an indigenous Hawaiian designer. He began his career in fashion in Honolulu in the mid-1970s, following a successful career as a show dancer in Las Vegas and Hollywood. While the aloha wear industry had been flourishing in Hawai'i since the 1930s, Nake'u was one of the first Hawaiian designers to emerge in the field. Today, he is acknowledged as a trailblazer for indigenous fashion in Hawai'i and an elder in the local community.
Nake'u operates a small shop in the heart of Kalihi in Honolulu, which is jam packed with his colourful aloha shirts, mu`u mu`u (dress) and holokū (a formal gown with a train); and adorned with memorabilia from his career as a dancer and designer. His shop is for clients ‘in the know’, and who want to wear a truly 'Hawaiian' garment. Nake'u staffs the shop himself, talking story with customers, most of whom he knows, and offering what one customer has described as ‘brutally honest’ advice on what looks good and what does not.
Especially commissioned fabrics
Frustrated with the limitations of commercially available fabrics early in his career, Nake'u began commissioning friends, many of whom were local artists, to design prints. Nake'u releases new prints each year, and continues to rework his historical catalogue.
A kapa cloth pattern of wana
This print was designed by Moana Eisele (1942-2017), a renowned kapa artist, who was instrumental in the revival of kapa making in Hawaii in the early 1980s.
The print features wana (sea urchins), a popular historical kapa cloth motif. As with kapa cloth, Eisele has used ohe-kāpala, a form of bamboo stamp, to create the pattern.
When Nake'u presented this shirt to Te Papa, he spoke of memories of Moana, and of the joys of diving for wana as a youth.
Co-collecting in Hawai'i
This shirt was acquired by Te Papa during a co-collecting trip to Hawai'i in 2017. Te Papa worked with Noelle Kahanu,a cultural specialist from the University of Hawai‘i, to develop collection of aloha shirts
that reflects the ways in which Hawaiian culture has been historically represented, and misrepresented, through the aloha shirt, and the ways in which contemporary native Hawaiian designers are utilising the aloha shirt to communicate indigenous cultural values.Te Papa’s co-collecting programmes are guided by the principle of mana taonga – the sharing authority with stakeholder communities.