Aotearoa Dreaming

What a luminous week it has been, celebrating the artistry of Aotearoa at Fashion Week, an experience that felt as much a reflection on a shared past, as a manifestation of our shared future.

It is easy, at times, to scoff when Auckland dares to dream bigger, to step beyond its small boots. What we may lack in population or resources, we more than make up for in ambition. And yet, there lingers the sense that we are not always afforded the same permission to believe that our dreams could grow into something greater than imagination alone. This week reminded me otherwise: that we are not bound by geography, demographics, or history, but connected instead by a shared desire to be seen, not compared, but honoured for what we are.

I felt this truth deeply while watching the Harris Tapper show unfold, not in some stalk hall, but in my favourite neighbourhood café and wine bar, Blue, a space that felt more like an evening among friends than a traditional runway.

Designer Rebe burgess carried this same spirit into her residency, crafting a living installation that invited us to explore our own relationship with creativity. She reminded us that while ideas themselves are currency, sustaining the ecosystem also requires financial currency, that supporting local and independent voices is essential if we are to keep this creative loop alive.

Though it is tempting to believe we exist in small, separate containers, Fashion Week revealed otherwise. The richness lies in cross-pollination, the weaving together of ideas, disciplines, and dreams that give texture to the whole. Jewellery designer Jasmin Sparrow embodied this truth in her collaborative installation with artist Jade Townsend, where form and concept dissolved into one another. Creativity, they showed us, transcends subcultures; like water, it takes the shape of any vessel it is poured into.

And perhaps this is what Fashion Week ultimately offered me, as someone who lives in the world of SALA rather than the front row: a reminder that the seed is always to be seen. Regardless of our practices, fashion, movement, art, or the everyday rituals that shape our lives, that desire for visibility, for recognition, is something we all share. To be witnessed, just as we are, is its own kind of beauty.