Before the rain came, the sun was out in Tāmaki Makaurau on Wednesday for the first day of Te Matatini, Aotearoa’s largest and most prestigious kapa haka festival.
Thousands of spectators flocked to Eden Park to experience the event after the festival’s hiatus since 2019. It is also the 50th anniversary of the event that has been cancelled multiple times over the past few years due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As well as the competition itself, there is also a marketplace featuring stalls from Māori businesses.
On day one the crowds were out in full force to support the 45 rōpū (groups) performing on stage across the four-day festival, with self-expression, accessories and comfort top of mind for many.
Stuff Pou Tiaki reporter Eda Tang went along to chat to some of the stylish guests about their ensembles.
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* Cheers and applause as first Matatini rōpū takes the stage
Eda Tang/Stuff
Father and daughter Te Haate and Äria.
Te Haate and Āria
Te Haate carries a bag made from thick plaits of harakeke and adorned with pāua shell, with bananas, chips and snacks inside.
“My mum brought this back home a couple of months ago; it was from my uncle who found it in an op shop in Auckland. He thought, ‘what is a beautiful bag like this doing in an op shop?’ and quickly snatched it up. My mum was going to use it as a decoration, but I said, ‘no! I’m off to Te Matatini, and I’m going to use that as an actual bag’.”
Te Haate also says, “My haircare routine is, don’t touch it”.
Āria is wearing classic white Crocs adorned with Jibbitz [charms], including a mushroom, ladybug, flower, butterfly and The Grinch. Her favourite features three doughnuts.
Tia
Tia likes to colour-coordinate and “keep it funky fresh”. With their lucky number being five, Tia wears a 555 necklace. The number was how Tia met their partner and how they got their house, “so it’s tino taonga tēnei”.
“I went for comfort and light because as people know, when you come to Matatini, it is super, super hot,” says Tia, also showing off AWWA period-proof underwear.
Tia has a lot of style icons, listing Left Eye, Lil’ Kim and Sade. “I’m a 90s baby. I’ve got so many influences and I feel like a lot of them were influenced by my whānau because I was raised by wāhine.”
Josie
Describing herself as a “great window shopper”, Josie loves fashion and keeping hold of clothes. “At my age, a lot of my clothes I’ve had for years. So it recycles itself and as long as your weight stays the same, you’re pretty lucky”.
“It’s a cycle of clothing that old people have worn over their lifetimes, but we store them – the ones that mean a lot to us, we hold onto. We can restyle clothing. So we go to good hospice shops, and we can be stylie. We’re good at that because that’s the generation we grew up in – we never wasted nothing.”
Te Inuwai
Te Inuwai wears a Penny Sage dress which is made and designed in Aotearoa, paired with brown New Balance sneakers and socks.
“I usually wear a lot of neutral colours like browns, earthy tones, greens because I want to wear the colours of the taiao, the environment,” said te Inuwai. “It just helps to ground me back into Papatūānuku”.
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