Garments by Denise Kaafi from the ‘Ilisapesi Collection on view at the Chase Home Museum of Utah Folk Arts & Crafts. Kaafi’s designs incorporate brightly dyed feathers and shells, blending Pacific Island traditions with contemporary fashion.

The coos of the birds from their nests at the Tracy Aviary echo into the warmly lit entry gallery at Chase Home Museum of Utah Folk Arts, now showing Denise Kaafi’s Polynesian fashion garments flaunted with feathers and shells, fusing modern visions with her traditional roots. The ‘Ilisapesi Collection pays tribute to the artist’s grandmother, Elizabeth, otherwise known as ‘Ilisapesi in Tongan, for inspiring the artist’s own journey in fashion design starting when she was a young girl.

Born in New Zealand and raised in Tonga, the artist roots her work in her traditional Māori and Tongan ancestry, using traditional materials and methods to create one-of-a-kind gowns, costumes, and and traditional garments. When she was young, Kaafi performed in traditional garments designed by her grandmother and by the age of 14, she had started designing her own pieces, learning the ways of her grandmother and the skills passed down through her family. The garments at the Chase Home Museum embody her culture through fashion and materials, using elements unique to the Pacific Islands like feathers, shells, tapa cloth and specialized inks.

The feathers used display a brightness comparable to a peacock, yet spanning the color wheel beyond the ceruleans and iridescent emeralds. Fucshia, cochineal red, taxicab yellow and earth tones of browns, oranges and creams are arranged by Kaafi’s discerning eye for color coordination, both monochromatically and complementary. As seen in Kaafi’s garments, traditional Tongan clothing is often made with plants woven into sashes or mats, resembling a less flexible burlap, making up the bodies of some garments. Folded into pleats or wrapped with fraying ends, the material surely elicits the tropical nature of her home, the ocean wind blowing, the rainforests and all their fibers and creatures. Shells that would be found from the beaches pock the collars, laid amongst the feathers like amulets. The feather collars lay across the contours of collarbones, the heart of the piece sitting at the sternum holding a sense of power in its majesty.

Traditional garments in Denise Kaafi’s ‘Ilisapesi Collection feature tapa cloth, woven plant fibers, and feather adornments derived from Pacific Island traditions.

Tapa cloth is a traditional Pacific Island fabric made from thin sheets of bark typically from mulberry and fig trees. The bark is softened through soaking and beating, becoming soft yet still sturdy enough to be used for common household items like floor mats and clothing, as well as used for special events like weddings or funerals. Hanging in the gallery is a large scroll, like a  projector screen but instead of a white sheet, it is an earthy scroll of fibrous paper with traditional designs painted on in a hue and effect not dissimilar to Native American painted pictographs we see here on the vermilion walls of Southern Utah. It was a subtle overlap of indigenous people’s record-keeping and tradition across geographies and cultures.

Among the most regal and intricate of the garments in the collection is Kaafi’s “Traditional Special Occasion Attire,” created this year, using tapa cloth, feathers and shells. The tapa cloth is sewn to form a low-cut mermaid dress, while a second whiter sheet is used as a cape shawl to wrap around her majesty’s shoulders, reaching merely to the length of the mermaid’s flare just below the knee. Iridescent oranges and brown feathers like those of pheasants are arranged in circular plumes, lying like roof tiles over one another around the collar of the shawl. The main body has an even pattern of feather clusters across the back, with more feathers lacing the trim to bring it all together in an ornate outfit for a celebration of deep honor. To top it off, quite literally, the headpiece towers two feet above in a tri-prong piece of regal feathery that requires nothing less of our full attention. This set has a natural beauty in its earth tones that coalesces its materials and inspirations into Kaafi’s most sophisticated example of her craft.

The garments would benefit from being pulled away from the walls—at the very least the Special Occasion outfit—so viewers could circle the garment in its entirety. The details that span the outfit, from front to back and side to side, cannot be fully appreciated when craning around the mannequin before your head meets the wall. Still, Kaafi’s aim is clear: to inspire in others the same confidence and beauty her grandmother inspired in her. The sound of neighboring birds drifts through the gallery in this show, now on view through May 9.

A large tapa cloth scroll with traditional Pacific Island motifs hangs in the gallery alongside Denise Kaafi’s garments in The ‘Ilisapesi Collection.

The ‘ILISAPESI Collection, Chase Home Museum of Utah Folk Arts, Salt Lake City, through May 9.

Genevieve Vahl

Genevieve Vahl is a writer, farmer and artist from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her writing focuses on how art and community intersect, how to bring access to food and covering climate solutions around the Salt Lake Valley. She also writes poetry, binds artist books, makes paper and runs cyanotype prints from film.