How One Style Designer Is Embracing Native Hawaiian Tradition

From her dwelling on the sleepy island of Molokai, the fifth largest within the Hawaiian Islands chain, Kanoelani Davis brings gorgeous creations to life by means of materials, patterns, motifs, and the tales of her ancestors and her Island.

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ōMahina Designs is described as a wearable artwork firm imbued in essence and tradition, steeped in reviving elemental historical names and tales of previous by means of geometry and line artwork. Each bit is full of mythology and historical past.

PōMahina in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi means night time moon, which Davis describes as a transparent and vivid moon. Whether or not seen or unseen, she encompasses the night time sky from horizon to horizon, bringing an power that’s shared with the world.

However the “designs” a part of PōMahina Designs weren’t all the time meant to be wearable–their job was to inform tales, wealthy as the colourful colours and patterns that assist deliver these tales to life.

“I wasn’t attempting to get into style. Style was a label positioned upon me by those that had been nonetheless attempting to know me and had the necessity to determine me,” Kanoelani displays.

“The muse of PōMahina Designs was to protect the historic names of components to proceed to breathe life into our tradition and for it to be retained by the subsequent technology,” Davis explains. “PōMahina’s objective was to attach self to the ʻāina, the kai, and the weather. For this objective, I did a full line in 2019 at London Style Week referred to as Elemental Consciousness. We’re right here to strengthen cultural identification for Kānaka Maoli and to attach the world to our clothes and designs to coach others of who we deeply are.”

Whether or not intentional or unintentional, the style world has allowed Davis to deliver the tales and fantastic thing about Hawaiʻi, significantly the tradition and historical past of its folks and the islands’ pure atmosphere, to the world. Davis has been capable of inform these tales on the runways of New York, Paris, and London in a method that’s genuine, with no coconut shell bra or grass skirt in sight.

However–and right here’s the large however–she makes all of it FUN. Kanoelani Davis does all the pieces with type, humor, and pleasure, however all the time with a no-BS perspective that she by no means apologizes for.

Davis’ designs are all in regards to the ‘āina, the ocean, the gorgeous, peaceable place she calls dwelling. And it’s not nearly the fantastic thing about the place however the deep-rooted connections which were fashioned there for a whole lot of years. Her kūpuna (ancestors) are buried within the land and at sea, and their mana is all over the place.

“I communicate to the wind, and I ask for rain. As Indigenous folks, the weather and pure sources are initially. We’re the land, and we’re the sky. If we care for these issues, they care for us,” Davis says.

A go to to the PōMahina Designs web site attracts guests in with lovely colours and patterns that make customers wish to be taught extra about them. There’s one thing for everybody there—girls, males, youngsters—that includes all the pieces from streetwear to enterprise informal garments, umbrellas, yoga mats, and head-to-toe equipment, together with jewellery and motif-bearing canvas footwear.

Most gadgets are customizable and really size-inclusive, permitting customers to decide on patterns to create their very own excellent garment. There are almost 50 patterns to select from, together with motifs like the colourful ʻōhiʻa lehua flower that tells a tragic love story involving the Hawaiian goddess Pele or the placing symmetrical niho (tooth) patterns characterize shark’s enamel.

“I supply a variety of choices on my web site as a result of I need you to really feel very particular while you put on my garments. I don’t need you to fret about being at an occasion and sporting one thing another person has on. That’s why there are such a lot of sample decisions in a wide range of types,” Davis explains.

Whereas the clothes and equipment on the PōMahina web site are dimension and elegance inclusive, it’s solely pure for potential prospects to wonder if or not it’s alright to buy this #modernmaoli put on if they don’t seem to be Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians). To that, Kanoelani solutions with a convincing “ʻAe” (Sure).

“PōMahina Designs was created for everybody. We hope that individuals who put on these designs can share our story with the world,” Davis says. “I’m acutely aware and conscious that anybody can put on my garments as a result of I do know they admire and love who we’re as Kānaka Maoli.”

Naturally, the continuum that exists between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation comes into play when buying and, extra importantly, sporting designs and motifs from cultures apart from your individual. Determining simply the place one thing sits on that continuum isn’t all the time simple, however taking the time to be taught, to actually perceive the meanings of the patterns, colours, and designs that you just put in your physique, takes you out of the exploitative, disrespectful, or stereotypical method that defines appropriation.

Sure, dressing up as a Native American for Halloween is cultural appropriation.

For her half, Kanoelani needs to be part of that academic course of, and she or he tries to fulfill folks the place they’re. She’s received an enormous presence on social media, which she credit to her world publicity, the place she shares her mana‘o (beliefs) in enjoyable and entertaining methods. She goes deeper along with her Mana Bombs podcast, digging into her ‘ike Hawaiʻi (data of Hawaiʻi) and sharing her unapologetic Native Hawaiian intelligence.

But it surely’s not a one-way road.

“I’m right here to inform our folks’s story and proceed this common understanding of appreciation and aloha by means of style, design, and clothes. I need you to interact and ask me the questions. I need you to ask me how I got here up with one thing and what it means. The extra we’ve got these conversations worldwide, the better it’s to get this sense of confidence to assist and admire.”

She displays that it’s additionally crucial to do your homework earlier than you begin asking questions.

“Beneath Western philosophy, you’d in all probability flip to a ebook. However in Native areas, we be taught in several methods. First, is to look at. Simply shut your mouth and simply observe. Listen. After which, while you ask questions, assume earlier than you ask. Taking the time to look at will permit us to develop the questions we have to ask. The suitable questions. That takes time. Additionally, expertise–get on the market, and fail a few instances. You’ll decide up classes actually shortly while you fail. You need to have that private expertise to actually and deeply perceive what it means. You can not get that from a ebook, you can’t Google that.”

One other of Davis’ largest reflections on the subject is why we even must make these designations within the first place.

“We are able to’t transfer ahead with out addressing the therapeutic course of,” says Davis. “We’re nonetheless therapeutic. This subject of appreciation and appropriation wouldn’t even be a problem had there not been one thing unsuitable within the first place. I’m personally working by means of a few of these triggers and traumas by means of my work.”

In her case, and the case of Kānaka Maoli, that trauma comes by the hands of colonialism and the following near-elimination of historical Hawaiian customs, language, and lifestyle. And, let’s face it, a few of the modern-day ramifications of colonialism are nonetheless evident at the moment, due to the tourism business.

This dialog of what’s and isn’t culturally acceptable can and also needs to carry over to what’s and isn’t acceptable as a traveler to a tradition exterior one’s personal. These ideas of doing all your homework, studying greater than what’s simply on the floor, observing, after which asking sensible questions are all relevant to journey.

At 32 miles lengthy and 10 miles vast, with no cease indicators or franchises—that’s how Kanoelani describes her Island in an effort to assist folks perceive the distinctive lifestyle that’s lived on Molokai. It’s an island flanked by sprawling fringe reefs and a few of the tallest sea cliffs on the planet. The right sense of stillness and reverence permeates the island. It’s a spot of timeless magnificence that its residents fiercely defend.

Though the PōMahina Designs tagline is: “Molokai Made. Molokai Impressed.” Kanoelani doesn’t need everybody to hurry out and purchase a ticket to go to Molokai.

“We’re asking for a moratorium on guests for a couple of years,” explains Davis. “We nonetheless want a while for our island to relaxation as a result of guests are coming, however they aren’t leaving. We wish people to return, spend cash, and go dwelling. An enormous subject that we’re having is folks desirous to retire on Molokai, however they don’t anticipate simply how completely different it’s from residing wherever else. Everybody needs to return right here for the peace, but when everybody strikes right here, then it’ll find yourself no completely different than the place they left.”

Davis doesn’t simply speak the speak; she is very energetic in serving to to find out the way forward for tourism on her island, each on the native and state degree. Whereas residents could be discouraging guests to the island, for now, Kanoelani makes use of PōMahina—together with a few of her different ventures like her MANA Bombs podcast—to inform the tales of Molokai and Hawai‘i and the folks and locations that make it particular. Whereas Kanoelani doesn’t communicate for all Indigenous folks and even for all Kānaka Maoli (Indigenous Native Hawaiians), her experiences are deeply rooted in native traditions and tradition.

However PōMahina Designs is for everybody, and, as with each style and journey, Davis encourages people to be brave.

“You’re going to make errors and also you’re going to offend,” she says. “It’s what you do with that data that makes all of the distinction in whether or not you admire or acceptable.”