A national costumer, or folk dress, expresses an identity through traditional garments. Such folk dress often come in two forms: one for everyday occasions, the other for festivals and formal wear
Māori Flax Skirts - New Zealand Folk Dress
Traditional Garments -Māori Flax Skirts - New Zealand National Costumes Regional costume, folk costume and traditional garments. A folk costume is a basic element of a country's culture and craft, closely tied with its whole history
Māori Traditional Garments
There were two main types of garments: A knee length kilt-like garment worn around the waist and secured by a belt. And a rectangular garment worn over the shoulders. This might be a cape-like garment or a long cloak-like garment of finer quality
Men's belts were known as tatua and women's as tu. The man's belt was usually the more ornate. Belts were usually made of flax but occasionally other materials were used such as kiekie and pingao. Flax belts were often plaited in patterns with black and white stripes. The belts tied with a string tie. Women often wore a belt composed of many strands of plaited fibre
When Maoris emigrated from a warmer climate, into a colder and rainier land, their ancestors had to become very resourceful with the materials at hand. In order to adapt to the rougher nature forces the two types of garments progressed
Pake Rain Cloak
To meet the cold and wet conditions of the New Zealand winter, a rain cloak (pake) emerged. It was made from tags of raw flax or Cordyline partly scraped and set in close rows attached to the muka or plaited fibre base. A type of garment known as a pake karure was made of two-ply closed strands of hukahuka (twisted or rolled cord or tag) interspersed with occasional black-dyed two-ply open type karure (loosely twisted) muka thread cord. Garments such as these were worn interchangeably either around the waist as a piupiu, or across the shoulder as a cape
Piupiu - Modern version of the kilt
Piupiu are a more modern version of the kilt. The waistband is plaited or in some cases made from tāniko. The body of the piupiu is usually made from flax leaves that are carefully prepared with the muka or flax fibre exposed in some sections to cause geometric patterns to emerge. The unscrapped leaves will curl naturally into tubes as the leaves dry and make a percussion sound when the wearer sways or moves. The geometric patterns can be emphasised through dying as the dye will soak more into the exposed fibres rather than the dried raw leaf
Korowai - Fine Cloaks
Korowai are finely woven cloaks covered with muka tassels (hukahuka). Hukahuka are made by the miro (twist thread) process of dying the muka (flax fibre) and rolling two bundles into a single chord which is then woven into the body of the cloak. There are many different types of korowai that are named depending on the type of hukahuka used as the decoration. Korowai karure have tassels (hukahuka) that appear to be unravelling. Korowai ngore have hukahuka that look like pompoms. Korowai hihima had undyed tassels
NZ Dress - Past and Present
Even though these days Maori clothing is typical to the twenty-first century, there are still glimpses of the beautiful traditional clothing in many formal events. Wearing traditional clothes in official ceremonies plays an important role in their cultural identity
All public celebrations begin with a Kapa Haka performance in traditional Maori clothing as part of New Zealand's multi cultural background