Te Wiki Āhua o Aotearoa, the rangatahi-led, do-it-yourself fashion week, opened its first show on Monday. Lyric Waiwiri-Smith reports from the runway.
When New Zealand Fashion Week (NZFW) was cancelled for 2024, it seemed to some the death knell of an industry buckling under financial pressure. To others, a gap in the market had just opened up.
In lieu of what would have been a perfectly posh, prim and proper NZFW, likely on Auckland’s waterfront wedged between a Wynyard Quarter crossing that still doesn’t work and rows of fancy eateries, something else has taken its place. Uptown, at the edge of the city’s central business district on Karangahape Road, a group of independent designers offering their services for free have proved impassioned fashion is still à la mode.
Outside Raynham Park (not actually a park but a studio space) on Monday night, for Te Wiki Āhua o Aotearoa’s first runway show Life Cycle of a Butterfly, a line had already formed at the door just after 6pm. Past checkerboard tiles and up a narrow staircase, a flurry of stylish bodies, pumping music (with a live DJ mixing 2000s hits) and flashing lights bounced from wall to wall. There was still an hour to go until the show actually began, but the room was heaving, with little leeway around the crowd that had gathered by the door.
Needless to say, everyone there was stylish. I wondered if perhaps the crowd would appear like copy-and-paste cutouts of each other or their social media feeds, like when I went to Laneway Festival and everyone was wearing jorts and ribbons (myself included). But the crowd there had their own unique sense of style, personalised with a certain accessory or statement piece that set each person apart, even if influenced by mainstream trends. And not everyone was here purely for the spectacle of fashion – at the end of the runway, a family waited with flowers to congratulate their daughter.
The venue is capable of hosting 250 people, and Monday’s show was sold out. Unlike the last official fashion week show I saw, which would have been able to seat the same number of admirers (if not more), the atmosphere in Raynham Park felt much more intimate and genuinely exciting. It makes a difference when you’re watching a fashion show for the art – with fewer media people and more artists – rather than the prestige.
Āhua is the brainchild of co-organisers Sophia Kwon and Nina Bailey, who drew plans in Kwon’s iPhone Notes app for a fully independent fashion week over cheesecake in Auckland’s Catalina Bay, at the tip of Hobsonville Point. With no sponsors or funding to play with, the goal was to host a week-long event for local designers who felt overlooked by the wider fashion industry, to champion do-it-yourself fashion from unknown labels who need a little more help in the industry than their bigger-name counterparts.
This was June 4, just over a month after New Zealand Fashion Week announced it wouldn’t return until the latter half of 2025, giving organisers time to assess the industry’s current financial climate and allow retailers to focus on their business. With stalwart Kate Sylvester and various other brands shutting up shop, the giants of the industry seemed to be in a slump. Maybe it was time to finally prop up the little guy.
The pair tapped Billy Blamires, a part of the Rogue collective who set up a similar underground fashion runway before last year’s NZFW, to form a trio. From there, it was all on the power of their contact book: Bailey, a dancer, took Kwon to Karangahape Road’s Raynham Park, a venue-for-hire she had performed at before. Somehow, the two managed to convince landlord James to let them use the space (mostly) free of charge.
“He must’ve thought, ‘in this recession? In this economy?’” Kwon laughs, but it wasn’t hard to convince him they were serious about the pitch. “Nina works and I study full-time, but at least a couple days a week, we came in and did six to eight hours straight of just admin. James was like, ‘OK, you guys are fucking serious’.”
It was just over a month after that initial cheesecake and Catalina date that the trio hosted their first hui in Raynham Park for interested designers to learn more about the kaupapa. With the goal of donating the bulk of their proceeds to pro-Palestinian efforts in Gaza at $17.25 per ticket, they had to minimise costs at every corner. It wasn’t just Bailey, Kwon and Blamires doing the mahi for free – everyone, from the landlord down to the door staff, put a voluntary hand up to see the Āhua dream realised.
This includes the 24 designers, who had just two months after that initial hui to craft clothing and curate collections. Like Kwon, many were university students, and pieces submitted to their tertiary exams were recycled and allowed another spin on the underground runway. When you have a dream, sometimes you need a bit of flexibility to make it work.
Off the bat, the Life Cycle of a Butterfly called to mind something delicate and feminine. When I tell Kwon this, she laughs: “Expect anything but. The life cycle of a butterfly is beautiful, but painful.” It’s not so much about the butterfly, but the rebirth.
With Kwon’s background in film, Bailey’s in dance and Blamire’s in fashion, the trio combined all of their mediums to create an immersive experience. The show opened with Blair Witch-esque visual projections from artist JJ Farry and a dance performance from 14-year-old Stacy, invited by James (“he has this little box of magic tricks”, Kwon says), before KONGCORE’s collection took the runway.
KONGCORE, designed by Angela Kong, appeared on the NZFW runway in 2023, and an almost return to fashion week is far better than nothing at all. Her collection consisted of upcycled knitwear, though not like your nana’s – it was artfully distressed and draped across small and large bodies, skin popping through various gaps and holes. The collection closed with a form-fitting red gown, fit with knitted gloves and a hollowed tail.
Designer Maxine’s florals and ruche-heavy collection followed. While still utilising knit textures – the ancient art is a trendy favourite among gen Z fashion fans for its textural possibilities and sustainable benefits – Maxine’s collection was slightly edgier. In between the bursts of pink florals there were chained accessories, including a headpiece falling inches below the shoulder, knitted gloves and ruffled and pouffed skirts.
Grace Wei’s Weiwen presented another largely knit collection, focused more on shaping than distressing. There were mini-dresses, and a gorgeous white two-piece fitted with a chic ushanka, which could almost convince you to go out into the show with most of your body bared. Like Kong’s, many of Wei’s knit looks were hollow and slightly distressed. Perhaps a hangover from the great craft spike of the pandemic, knitting has come to the forefront of the slow fashion and independent design movements as a flexible textile that can withstand the test of time better than your average H&M sale-rack shirt.
Thus signalled the end of the caterpillar’s life and its upcoming metamorphosis – another dance performance provided a break in the show, before the visuals switched from an unsettling supernatural horror show to beautiful butterflies, and Zheyi Ruan’s collection took the floor.
Utilising secondhand scarves and scrap fabric, her collection of upcycled patterned dresses provided a splash of colour among the monochrome knits. One model wore a large black jacket with a paisley scarf design, before throwing it off to reveal a matching dress underneath. Another model was dressed in a yellow and blue skin-tight gown hanging low enough on her back to show off a butterfly tattoo. The flatmate I’ve brought with me to see tonight’s show watched with piqued interest – Ruan designed her graduation gown.
Sleeping Profit’s collection was next, bringing playful It Girl-esque looks that nicely broke up the cohesion seen so far on the runway. Though focused mostly on mini-dresses and skirts, there were two jackets with incredible structuring in the shoulders that I would have pinched right off the runway if allowed. If those jackets were on the racks at Ruby, every girl from here to Invercargill would be wearing them.
A nuptials-inspired collection by AeraTheLabel closed the show, pre-loved and upcycled wedding gowns providing the perfect symbolism for rebirth. Rather than your simple and straight tulle wedding dress, AeraTheLabel offered a range of options for every kind of bride that finds herself at the altar: a mini pouffe dress, a two piece with a bralette, leg-baring ruffles and embroidered lace acting as both a veil and top.
At the end of it all, the designers, as well as Kwon, were presented with bouquets. A mother standing at the end of the runway couldn’t hold her pride in any more – she turned to my flatmate, gave her a big smile and said “that’s my daughter”.
Āhua pulled off its opening runway show with perhaps more innovation than some of the shows presented at last year’s NZFW. For Kwon and the team it was time for celebratory drinks, then back at it again tomorrow for the second show. But seeing their dreams realised managed to stop them in their tracks, even if just for a breather: “We were in a bliss state, like, ‘can you believe that cheesecake in Catalina got us here?’”