We saw them at Fashion Week and we loved them... Urbanmaori. The brainchild of designer/director/artist and all round genius Kereama Taepa. He tells us his work is about making art "accessible for everyone".
The brand name Urbanmaori is based on the Maori word 'waimaori' meaning fresh water. And so Urbanmaori translates as pure street - cool huh? The crew tell us that it's made from two words, one Maori and one English, and is the core of their direction. It is not just Maori, it is not just pakeha; it is both.
The design aesthetic of urbanmaori fuses customary Maori motif with contemporary iconography one would see around town, on the T.V. or the internet – the visual language of popular culture. The idea is that the world around us now is what we live, and our cultural design should reflect this. It is sometimes beautiful and is also sometimes controversial just like our history. And we like it! In fact, we love it.
The collection features tees and scarfed sweatshirts adorned with prints of the smiley face with a moko, a pac-man ghost with a moko, the autobot icon with a moko (transformers) and a spin on the popular space invaders game where the ship is a whare nui and the aliens are the popes hat; to reference the missionaries, the crown; to reference the signing of the treaty with the crown, and the beehive; referencing the current government. You can also play a version of the game on their website at www.urbanmaori.com/spacies.html
So now you've seen it and you want it (to steal a line from a video we made last year), where to get the threads... Get yourself to www.urbanmaori.com and check out all the gear, order yourself some stuff and let NZ Post do the hard work of getting it to you! Thanks again to Red Cow Girl for the pics. We love you long time. M+M
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