Contemporary Korowai Designs was set up by me - Brenda and my daughters Brooke and Jade, back in 2018. We are proud to be celebrating our māoritanga (culture) and our tikanga (customary practices).
My daughter Jade started making Korowai as a means to make a bit of extra spending money for her little whānau. Showing them to friends, neighbours, whānau, and sharing them on social media, we quickly realised that these contemporary Korowai were proving to be very popular and demand quickly grew. Soon our Korowai were being ordered over Aotearoa for all kinds of special occasions such as whānautanga (births), mārenatanga (weddings) and tangihanga (funerals). We were finding that making traditional Korowai is a very long process and take months to create and are often very expensive, which didn’t allow the average person to be able to acquire one.
The answer was a modern take on traditional Māori cloaks that were quicker to make and could be sold at prices that most people could afford. We made a few for whānau and friends and posted pictures of them on social media. People loved them, and as the demand grew, our business grew. We are now sending these all over the world. We are also very proud of our Google Reviews as they are all 5-star.
We have slowly added other taonga to our collection and it now includes carved walking sticks, Māori 2st keys, wood and bone carvings and other products. These are mainly NZ made, and mostly hand carved.
Whānau is extremely important to us, and it is the foundation upon which our business, and the taonga we make is based. Brooke & Jade are of Tuwharetoa and Ngāti Apa descent.
Our business is based in Wainuiomata, Wellington.
We are also proud to support our local community by employing & supporting volunteers working for Fire and Emergency NZ.
Māori designs are part of the whakapapa of this country and our tāngata (people). We are proud to use traditional Māori korowai patterns and match these with either traditional or our own taniko patterns as part of our modern take on Korowai and kākahu designs.
Every taonga we make is hand crafted with aroha in New Zealand, and we are thrilled that our products play a role in growing the pride and whanaungatanga of the tāngata that buy and wear our products, particularly at important celebrations and special occasions.
He aha te mea nui o te ao?
He tangata, he tangata, he tangata