Clothing the Pacific

This book examines the multiple histories of cloth and clothing in the Pacific. The past three decades have witnessed the emergence of Pacific fashion stylists as well as cloth producers who are acutely aware of how globalization impacts on identity. Typically, their work integrates both Pacific and introduced forms.

This book compares these synthetic forms with others that developed in the region during the colonial period, when foreign cloth was typically adapted and incorporated within indigenous textile systems, and shows how cloth is central to the transmission of identity as well as a vehicle for associative thinking.

From an analysis of the place of cloth in traditional Tahitian religion, to fashion activism within the diaspora population in New Zealand, Clothing the Pacific provides fascinating insights into the shifting relationship between cloth and social imagination. By tracing the diverse responses to the imposition of dress upon Pacific Islanders, this book profoundly challenges Western assumptions about the place of cloth in culture.