Tahia aloha shirt

 Breath of life

This shirt features one of Wahine Toa’s signature designs – two heads pressed together in hongi – a traditional Maori greeting where the breath of life is exchanged.

Nita Pilago, the founder of Wahine Toa, is native Hawaiian. Based in Kona on Hawai’i Island, she draws inspiration from across the Pacific (including Aotearoa New Zealand from where she gets her name) to produce designs that reflect a range of cultural groups living in Hawai`i, including Maori and Samoans.

Te Papa also purchased a dress in this pattern, where the colour scheme is reversed (FE013096/1).

Wahine Toa

Wahine Toa is Maori for ‘strong women’. In 1993, Nita attended the World Indigenous People’s Conference on Education in Aotearoa New Zealand. During the conference, Hinewirangi Kohu, a prominent Maori poet, activist and artist, encouraged her to attend a theatre play called Wahine Toa. The play resulted in several recurring dreams which led to her changing her company from Anela Designs, after her husband, to Wahine Toa Designs.

Nita Pilago began making women’s wear, but expanded into men’s wear due to demand.

Keeping it in the family

Nita Pilago runs Wahine Toa from her home in Kona on Hawai’i Island. Many of her family members are involved in the business, from creating design work to helping staff the company’s popular pop-up stalls at events such as Merrie Monarch and the MAMO wearable art show (the company does not have a store nor do they wholesale).

‘The art … is done by myself, my husband, Angel, my son Kaleo and my son Che. All four of us contribute to the art of my clothing, my line. So that’s a fun part of the designing too, using my family art in the whole process.’

While designed in Hawai’i, this garment was individually hand painted and printed using the Batik wax process in Bali, by another family run business.

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. This shirt was purchased directly from Nita Pilago.

Te Papa’s co-collecting programmes are guided by the principle of mana taonga – the sharing authority with stakeholder communities.