the story
Wednesday April 2, 2025
This shoot was photographed on Oct 8 2015 in Sydney for a Fiji magazine that didn’t happen. As disappointing as that was, we didn’t know this at the time and shoot day was electric. As always.
Featuring the time’s top Sydney based Pacific models Diamond Lagi, Gamea Dina, Asena Rokotuiwai and Miriam S who were with the trailblazing Sydney based ETHNIC MODEL MANAGEMENT.
EMM was founded by the great TERRY-ANN LAPA who passed away suddenly in 2019, a displacement on our atomic plane that can never be filled. Terry-Ann was a LIFE FORCE.
The full EMM team that day was was Boss Terry-Ann, her 2nd Semaema Grace Cornford [who passed away in 2022 after a long and brave battle with kidney disease], MUA Leni Smith and me.
Terry honoured me by making me Creative Director and we had so much fun on many shoots.
Terry honoured me by making me Creative Director and we had so much fun on many shoots.
We shared a vision of actual population representation, with models from the Pacific counted as fashion talent and not just as fashionable extras.
[The Story of EMM. Soon]
Seen in the COLOURdoscope editorial are some of the top Fiji and Pacific region designers of that time, some still are.
Regionally renowned names like NAINA and HUPFELD HOERDER, the latter who is now Sydney based and a PhD candidate at Western Sydney University.
The Fiji fashion industry is an interesting look at creative resilience.
While it is a shadow of what it once was and saturated with more hustle than talent, there are still the veterans who launched their labels and designs in the 90s, a vibrantly creative decade worldwide. Designers in Fiji were ahead of the times!
[VINTAGE RUNWAY: FIJI in The 90s]
NAINA and HOERDER deserve to be household names globally.
However, as I wrote in this article from 2022: “In 50 years of industry, not one designer from Fiji has gone on to achieve international acclaim nor even regional success. An addiction to tradition keeps everyone small and it doesn’t help that foreign interest is not investment, rather, exploitation.“
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HOERDER will be hosting a Sustainable Fashion Design workshop as part of a collaboration between Powerhouse and TAFE NSW, focusing on new creative skills opportunities for young people in Western Sydney.
“Explore storytelling through sustainable fashion and pattern design with internationally acclaimed fashion designer Hupfeld Hoerder in this 3-day workshop.
Inspired by patterns featured in the Powerhouse Collection, Hupfeld will take students through the ideation, design and production processes. Students will have the opportunity to digitally conceptualise patterns and design garments that speak to their interests and identities.”
Inspired by patterns featured in the Powerhouse Collection, Hupfeld will take students through the ideation, design and production processes. Students will have the opportunity to digitally conceptualise patterns and design garments that speak to their interests and identities.”
22–24 April 2025 at PHIVE, Parramatta.
Also seen in the editorial are top designers Zilda, also a 90s veteran and a former top model, and Zuber by Ilai Jikoiono, who was truly a design star from his first hit collection launched at Fiji Fashion Week in 2015, [pieces shown here] to the unconventional collections launched in Fiji and shown at PACIFIC RUNWAY in 2017 and 2018.
According to sources and search engines, Zuber no longer exists. Hope Jikoiono is still a designer.