“Wear Whatever You Want, My Mokopuna” - My Tūpuna, Probably

Words by Kane Bassett | Ngāti Apa, Ngāti Kahungunu ki te Wairoa | He/Him

This article greeted me in a daydream. I found myself wondering what my tūpuna would make of modern day gender expression, and what this might mean for the way we dress. 

The conundrum of the Māori diaspora is that we often have few resources available to us when attempting to answer these questions. That said, there are tiny details trickled through the few historical accounts we do have. These offer us hope, as well as glimpses back to a society where gender expression was rather dynamic and fluid.

“We scattered ourselves among the huts. Crawling through the low entrance of one, I seated myself cross-legged in the midst of the family circle, and became popular by the present of a little tobacco, a portion of which, mingled with many compliments I presented to what I imagined to be a young and lovely Māori belle, with a pair of huge and magnificent eyes, her graceful form being wrapped up in a blanket, when to my disgust after a short time I found I was flirting with a boy.”

This is an account written amidst the booming Māori tourism industry at Whakarewarewa in Rotorua in the 1880s. To paraphrase the work of Kassie Hartendorp (Ngāti Raukawa) and Ngāhuia te Awekotuku (Te Arawa, Tūhoe, Waikato), this letter tells us a lot about the fluid nature of gender expression in pre-colonial Māoridom. 

To elaborate: we don’t know the name of the ‘Māori belle’, but we do know that they inhabited and expressed the femininity we typically associate with women. We know that doing so didn’t cause an uproar, at least on the part of their whanaunga. It is not possible to know why they chose to look this way, but it is possible to deduce that they were living comfortably in their expression. 

Today, we haven’t lost hold of this fluidity. It’s just that is often glossed over by strictly regimented, essentialised ideas pertaining to gender. These ideas manifest in phrases à la “men should wear x”, “women should wear y”, and “god forbid they wear z”.

I wanted to interrogate the way we draw essential links between gender and style, so I spoke to Frank Lewis. Frank is a prominent Wellington designer, boasting a Bachelor of Design (Fashion) with First Class Honours. His thesis focused on how costume and fashion can work to critique essential constructions of masculinity and femininity. I asked Frank what these constructions look like, specifically in relation to masculinity. 

He tells me that New Zealand’s most ‘natural’ form of masculinity is grounded in the Western idea that men should prohibit showing their emotions. This trickles through into the way men are expected to dress: “there’s not the same kind of risk-taking, with colour and silhouette especially, as we see in cultures [of people] that are more emotive”. 

The result is that men are expected to dress uniformly and plainly. We see this embodied in white collar professions, where suits blend men together, obstructing them from the ability to stand out in the office. We see it in rugby players, who are homogenised by uniforms on the field, and streamlined by formal dress in the clubrooms. Indeed, our hegemonic depictions of masculinity are based on strength and not weakness—a construction that can, and does, bleed into our wardrobes. 

Kate Hunter, a VUW History Professor with a longstanding interest in masculinity and dress, tells me that Wellington is rather unique. Citing the capital’s ‘hipster economy’ as grounds, she notes that in the last 10 years, there has been “an enormous tolerance for a wide range of expressions of masculinity”. Kate touches on a key point when it comes to understanding hegemonic constructions of masculinity—that, despite being powerful and overarching, they’re not always played out en mass in reality. 

I 100% vibe with what Kate has to say. When I moved to Wellington, I noticed the immense amount of room there is to wrestle with normative expressions of gender, particularly through clothing. This is what got me daydreaming in the first place. But to impose this idea onto an entire community of people, without actually talking to them, was something I never did in good conscience. I needed to talk to them, to be sure that what I noticed was actually related to gender expression, or whether, to my welcoming surprise, it was because of something else. 

And so that’s what I did—I spoke to people, each with a different lense to what their style means to them, and what it means for their gender identity. Without further adieu, allow me to introduce you to them. 

Jayden Rudolph | Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Raukawa | He/Him

Jay is takatāpui, an advocate for gender fluidity, and a standout Wellington fashionista. His place within te ao Maaori is inextricably linked to how he expresses himself through style. 

Takatāpui refers to all Indigenous people who identify with a diverse gender and/or sexuality. It ensures that tāngata whenua remain connected to te ao Māori in a way that doesn’t require them to shunt their queerness. This is to spite the heteronormative, cisnormative, colonial value systems responsible for naturalising the idea that there are essential qualities in men and women, or even the idea that there are only men and women. 

Jay learnt of takatāpui about a year ago, adding that “what we understand to be representative of male and female is not a product of te ao Māori, but a result of colonisation”. 

Key to takatāpui is the idea that one can express themselves however they see fit, especially through dress. This is important for Jay, who views clothing as a conduit through which he can bend the notion of gender binaries: “I dress how I feel on the inside, which is neither masculine or feminine”. Blurring these lines to the extent that they no longer constitute an intrinsic element of his clothing has been transformative for Jay, seriously enhancing the mana of his wairua.

In many  ways, Jay uses clothing to  embody the fluidity of gender expression that was welcomed in pre-colonial Māoridom. He shows us that fashion is, indeed, a meaningful way for tāngata whenua to reconnect with our traditional values and customs. 

James Holt | Ngāti Kahu, Ngāti Kahungunu ki te Wairoa, Whangaroa | He/Him

James is a queer civil servant who plays around with the connotations of masculinity and femininity in his style. He thinks about what is generally considered masculine before buying clothes which “bust that the fuck down.”

James favours his fur and fringe garments above everything else in his wardrobe, although I’ll have it on record that this still didn’t stop him from prepping seventeen thousand outfits for our photoshoot. He notes that today, fur and fringe are symbols of the eccentric and the flamboyant, but points out that their connotations have changed over time. 

Google corroborated what James had to say, informing me that from the 14th to the 17th century, England regulated fur apparel across the country. Expensive and ‘higher quality’ fur materials were reserved for the aristocratic elite, standing in as symbols of strength and power—characteristics we associate with hegemonic masculinity. Similarly, fringe is historically linked to the buckskin, a jacket worn predominantly by frontiersmen and cowboys. While clothing certainly carries gendered connotations, history tells us that these are in a constant state of flux. 

Gender is in this same state of motion and change. Anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss calls it a “floating signifier”—a concept that has no agreed upon meaning. Not to suggest that gender is just a series of ideas, as doing so would severely underestimate the affective nature of gender expression as an embodied, lived experience. But to suggest that our collective battle over gender, what it should look like, and what it can mean, shows just how fluid it is. 

James echoes this, saying that the fluid history of gender and dress highlights that “boys aren’t born masculine, and women aren’t born feminine. These are things we’re socialised into.” 

Not only is James a treasure, but he’s the chaotic, smart cookie kind of treasure. He teaches us that clothing has a rich, gendered history, and that looking at this can teach us to be critical of how gender is understood and played out in our social environments.

Jazz Kane | Te Āti Awa | He/Him

Jazz is a sucker for the small details in his silhouettes, fabrics, and accessories. Paying attention to detail is both an indicator of his taste and a way for him to socialise with others.  

“It’s the people who notice the details that I’m most excited to start conversations with.” 

Jazz speaks to the power clothing has to spur social interaction, an idea backed up by research. Malcom Barnard, author of ^Fashion as Communication^, points out that clothing delineates groups of people, ensuring that identities lay separate from another. Nonetheless, the appreciation one might have for points of difference can function as a common ground between people. Fashion can fence us off from our peers, enabling us to feel unique, but at the same time, it can be the means by which we’re able to jump those fences to build meaningful relationships with others. 

Jazz continues, saying that his attention to detail is his attempt to “redefine what means to present as masculine.” This is perhaps what Frank was referring to earlier with the notion of risk-taking, or of expressing emotion through dress. For surely, using details not only to enhance communication with others, but to redefine what it means to be masculine as well, is an inherently emotional process. 

Jazz’s attire speaks volumes. Volumes in terms of how powerful style can be, and volumes in terms of how much it can mean to people. Tautoko. 

Carolina Bun | She/Her

Carolina is a transgender woman, emerging Wellington drag queen, and full-time icon to boot. She frequents the realm of drag to disrupt societal gender norms, and just as importantly, to present an honest version of herself to the world. 

Drag, in its richest form, wrestles with hegemonic and ‘natural’ notions of gender expression. It normalises the abnormal, carving out space in our social arenas for subversive identities to exist freely, fiercely, and fabulously in their own little pockets of absurdity. It’s often viewed as an artform through which people create and embody a character distinct from who they are out of drag, although characterisation is not necessarily a prerequisite.

“[Drag] can look like a character, but for me, it’s an expression of who I really am”. 

Carolina’s drag is intimately tied to her identity as a trans woman. To some extent, it is the form she embodies to wrestle with a society unwelcoming of her gender nonconformity. But to a greater extent, it’s the truest expression of how Carolina sees herself. 

The way Carolina expresses herself through costume and drag is what performance studies scholar Madison Moore calls ‘fabulousness’. Such a word is a way of embellishing the body to flip the bird at prevailing gender codes, and to introduce unique, often marginalised identities, into our surroundings. 

I love this theory. If not because its name alone is enough to warrant ‘Icon Legend Star’ status on its own, but because it accounts for a particulalry special aspect of many queer lived experiences; the creative capacity queer people have to turn the pain and struggle associated with being marginalised into something joyous, beautiful, and worth celebrating. 

Carolina goes the full mile when wrestling with gender expression through fashion, and we love to see it. She also serves as a crucial reminder that reshaping systems of masculinity and femininity is not an experience exclusive to cisgendered men. Queen. 

***

For some people, clothes are just clothes—nothing more. But for so many others, they speak to who we are, and to a world we want to live in. A world where people can embrace the absurd, the abnormal, the seemingly grotesque, while remaining unscathed by consequence. It’s these people who teach us about the fluid nature of self-expression, and who remind us that the bare minimum going forward is always, and forever will be, with an open mind.

And so, I return to my daydream. I see my tūpuna laughing, cracking jokes at the premise of gender binaries in moments of classical Māori irony. I imagine them proud. Proud of people like Jay, James, Jazz and Carolina, for slowly inching us towards a culture of expression akin to theirs.