The Dunedin fashion designer and traditional Maori arts practitioner talks to Katie Day about the international opportunity, her creative evolution and cultural influences.
Bridgman, who is of Ngai Tahu, Kati Mamoe, Waitaha, Rabuvai and aboriginal descent, is the visionary behind Kahuwai, a fashion and traditional Maori arts label founded in Dunedin 20 years ago.
Through Kahuwai, Bridgman channels her skills as a fashion designer, artist and traditional weaver, giving fashioned form to her connections with natural surrounds, whanau and whakapapa.
The fresh waters, rugged landscapes and ever-changing skies of Dunedin furnished the background of Bridgman’s upbringing. Her creative talents were nurtured throughout teenage years and she excelled in photography, art and Maori at Queen’s High School. These skills were recognised as Bridgman was encouraged by her mother and the late Alva Kapa, adviser for Maori teachers throughout Otago and Southland and Nga Puna Waihanga National Council member, to apply for broadcasting school as the next step in her creative development.
"A beautiful elder in our community patted me on the shoulder and said ‘What are you doing, bub, after school, when you finish?’ and I said ‘I’m gonna be a pro surfer. I’m gonna go around New Zealand’ and she said ‘No, you’re not’ and then she encouraged me to go to broadcasting school, to do television, theatre and radio."
This opened the door for local broadcasting opportunities.
"I ended up working for Channel 9 TV for about three years. It really fine-tuned my broadcasting skills as a producer, director and presenter. Then I was ready to head to Auckland."
"I surfed every coastline possible to me; it took about three months to get from Dunedin to Auckland."
Once plugged in to the broadcasting buzz of the big city, Bridgman shared her creative communication skills as a Mai Time presenter for TVNZ.
"It was amazing. We used to travel all around New Zealand and film all these beautiful stories about our young Maori people or just Maori positive stories, which at that time was a first. So that’s been my driving force, to share these Maori stories." .
The time spent mastering her artistic skillset through broadcasting, transformed seamlessly into the foundation of her label Kahuwai, as Bridgman returned to Dunedin to build her family. Her children provide an endless source of inspiration.
"The boys were my inspiration to starting Kahuwai ... I started making them clothes and printing designs on their clothes. Then at kohanga, a Maori preschool here, they really inspired and encouraged me to sell my clothing. It began on a rack in the foyer there. In my whakaaro or philosophy around what I did, I believe everyone can afford to dress their children well, so everything was $10 and everything had a Maori image on it.
"I started printing really simple motifs and really simple proverbs or whakatauki and then adults wanted the designs, too, so it just grew from there."
As Kahuwai grew, Bridgman’s creative practice flourished, developing her artistry in mahi raranga — Maori weaving — and attending university to specialise in traditional Maori arts.
These skills have been infused into Kahuwai, offering couture fashion collections and jewellery, telling layered stories with considered attention to detail.
Waves of national and international recognition naturally follow her work. She has presented her fashion collections at Dunedin’s iD Fashion week, Melbourne Fashion Festival and been selected as a delegate to represent New Zealand for the Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture in Hawaii in 2020, which was postponed due to Covid.
Most recently London’s been calling, inviting Bridgman to showcase at London Pacific Fashion Week this coming September. The week is held alongside London and Paris fashion weeks and celebrates established Pacific fashion designers while offering a bridge to global fashion industry connections.
It has meant Bridgman has been able to get the collection she made for Hawaii, which has never been seen, out of its boxes and use it as a starting point for her collection to show in London.
The theme of this year’s showcase is sustainability, aligning with Bridgman’s care for the natural environment.
"I work in a really sustainable practice. We all know that fashion is the second-highest pollutant to the environment ... so everything is made here in Dunedin."
The designer sources all of her materials locally from sustainable natural resources and intertwines them with treasures found in op-shops.
"When I’m in my studio, it might be the music or it might be a conversation, or a proverb that I’ve learned or shared and somehow magically, things just come together. Like I will really wish I had some feathers and then you look beside you and a whole basket of feathers magically appear and then I collect a lot of amazing resources at the great Dunedin op shops as well."
With local materials and sustainable methods creating a frame for the collection, Bridgman is able to weave together a collection that embodies a lifetime of lived and breathed mahi toi Maori.
"The collection that I take to London will be a journey of the last 20 years of my life. Through my family, through learning te reo, through muttonbirding. Just a lot of elements of our culture will be woven into it.
"It will be tribal couture and it will be dripping with beautiful high-end Maori accessories."
Much like a wave emerging from a still spell of water, the opportunity to show at the fashion weeks has emerged and is moving ahead with graceful force.
"We’ve just we just been really positive about it. It all happened incredibly fast, but I think sometimes you’ve just got to jump on these opportunities when they come."
TO SEE
A show will be held in Dunedin on August 7, bringing together a community of Bridgman’s talented friends and whanau in fundraising support of Kahuwai’s presentation at London Pacific Fashion Week.
To donate visit: https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/awhi-amber-to-london-fashion-week
