Iaorana!

It’s been a while.

Though many exciting projects have occurred since the last time I posted I’ll begin by sharing the latest news.

I recently handed over a 1m x 1m piece to the Galerie Winkler Art gallery on Tahiti. It will be up for sale and displayed in April.

It’s a piece dear to me because though the breadfruit design has been seen time and time again, it’s been a personal challenge of mine to find new ways to design it. It takes many drafts before getting to something that is both innovative and representative of who I am and finally, I think this design was successful. It’s not classic and soft. Rather, it’s hard and edgy not only in its design but also in the color choices. It reminds me of a shadow on a lawn or of a silouhette against a pale sky.

It will be on exhibition during the last week of April at the Galerie Winkler in downtown Papeete.

Chanola reached out to us in June 2022 to begin discussing her dream tifaifai wedding gown for her wedding in October 2023! Talk about planning ahead!

Being based in Moorea, French Polynesia, the only obstacle for us was that Chanola lives in….PARIS! How could we make her a custom dress without even doing a single fitting? After all, it just makes sense that in order to make a dress that fits perfectly you need to be able see the drafts on the client. So we originally and sadly said no to Chanola.

Yet Chanola would not take no for an answer and, boy, are we glad she insisted! We figured out a way to have a friend of hers bring a dress that fit her properly from France to Tahiti. Using that, we were able to build her the tifaifai gown she had asked for.

It took the team many sketches, many revisions, many prototypes, many pattern adjustments, and of course many hours of hand sewing to create what you see in the photograph today.

We feel so proud and also so excited to start the next gown because believe it or not the next bride has already reached out to begin designing her tifaifai dress for her wedding in December 2024!