Design: Being pacific

Stephanie Overton's Devonport home is filled with Pacifc style. Photo / Babiche Martens

Walking through the houses and streets of Ponsonby and Grey Lynn you might think a Government decree on design and colour is in place. There's a pervasive wash of "Muriwai grey-blue" inside and out.

Muted-colour decoration is not just plain, it's plain boring. Isn't it time for the reintroduction of colour, pattern and detail into our decoration and design? And the inspiration for that is right on our doorstep - the islands of the Pacific.

Stephanie Overton, an Auckland interior designer with a passion for everything Pacific, says it from the heart: "The traditional fabrics and beautiful dishes, the tapa cloth, prints and carvings, they're not just for the islands, they're part of all of our background."

On the surface, the culture of our design stores and galleries still appears European. But look a little closer and you see how strongly the Pacific influence has come through. Europe may have been the predominant influence in art and design here in the 20th century, but in the 21st the focus has definitely shifted towards the Pacific. And so it should. Our design should reflect the landscape and colour of this region, not something in the Northern Hemisphere. It's time European starkness gave over to the vibrancy of the islands.

Overton's interest in the Pacific started at an early age. She modelled for the legendary Samoan-born Eleitino Paddy Walker, who founded Pacifica more than 30 years ago. They still keep in touch. She explains how the interest grew.

"I spent quite a lot of time up in Tahiti. We built a traditional Tahitian house there in the 1970s, with windows all the way around. People asked what I was going to put inside. I said 'just what the Tahitians use' - big cushions with tifaefae [Tahitian applique work] and mats. It's a very relaxed feel." She remembers people in New Zealand being bemused that she would want to use Polynesian decoration. They thought it was funny.

"Nobody ever used it in those days; you would only ever find it in Otara. That was the thinking then. But I just love the designs and have always used them."

Overton advocates embracing what is naturally in front of us, rather than going in search of an English or European look. "The colours and the fabrics and designs are here." Rather like fusion cooking, she started to mix the Pacific influence with what was traditionally English.

An example of "mixing it" can be seen in her own home. The bench top in her kitchen is terrazzo, but instead of marble chips it's inlaid with shells from the beach.

"Our design should be an expression of this way of life we have which is unique."

Overton's daughter, Laura, also a designer, describes it as "barefoot luxury" - a back to basics feel. "It's so desirable," says Overton, "this idea of catching your own fish and cooking it on the beach. Our houses should reflect that way of life. You can't do it in London; you can't do it in New York." Much as she admires European design, she thinks we are not celebrating what we have here. "You have to keep those bits of your heritage with you, as part of who you are, and not get caught up with being an Italian or a Frenchman in New Zealand."

"Half of Herne Bay is bland on the outside," says Overton. She thinks it's pretty bland on the inside, too, with that ubiquitous smooth and clean, glossy, flat-wood feel. "There's no movement on it. I'm not that sort of person. It can be lovely, but for me I like things with a sense of personality that comes from where the person has been and what they're saying." She uses a clothing analogy - it's the things you add that creates a look and gives it character, rather than

just taking on a design. "I like to think that if I am doing an interior it's going to tell a story of the person - who they are and where they've been, what they've enjoyed in their lives and what they're proud of."

This is what Overton strives to do in her designing, eschewing a certain derivative minimalist look that has become very identifiable in New Zealand.

Her husband, John, makes a good point. "I think Steph is more interested in the past than where a person is going. New Zealanders tend to dump the past very quickly. They're almost too aspirant."

He thinks that when it comes to design, people in New Zealand say "I want it to be modern and slick", basing it on what others have done, rather than their own background and experience. "It's sad. You walk into a house and say, I've seen this interior 17 times before. What does this say about you? Nothing, there's little relation to individual history, almost as if it's a look plucked off the shelf."

"Plucking it off the shelf" would not be something Overton could be accused of. In her own abode she mixes bright, tifaefae-style coloured cushions, thrown on a sofa, with antique furniture covered in Tongan tapa cloth. The effect is dramatic - formal and lived-in at the same time.

She's working on a big, old 1930s house in Remuera. "I'm not doing that pretty chintz English thing. I'm putting woven papers on the walls and would like to use some large, beautifully woven baskets I found in Papua New Guinea as planters or wood baskets. We are also using some very beautiful shell planters. What's exciting is that all these things were found here in the South Pacific.

And then she reflects on the times. "There really is a resurgence of everything local now. Perhaps it's the credit crunch ... looking at what we have rather than needing to be English or Italian or French.

"We have it here ..."

Fear of Colour

Another person with a passion for everything Pacific is Viv Kernick, co-owner of Bella Pacific with photographer Kirsty Griffin.

"Pacific arts and craft has become so much the psyche of Auckland. People coming into this shop aren't afraid of colour," she laughs. Kernick walks around the shop touching the printed cloth, talking about the artists. Her enthusiasm is infectious. "I have a passion for fabric," she says. But the enthusiasm is tinged with sadness. "In the time we've had this shop there's been fewer and fewer of the Pacific cotton print fabrics, due mainly to the demise of fabric shops."

Rarotongan tivaevae is something Kernick talks about eloquently, the applique work the Tahitians call tifaefae. She is a little coy when it comes to revealing her sources.

"I used to buy cushions from a Cook Islands' lady in her 80s. She's not doing it any more. Fewer women are making the tivaevae now. It's pretty special and always made for some sort of ceremony - a birth, a wedding or a funeral."

When they started out, Kernick and Griffin were worried they were going to stand on people's toes over the question of tivaevae, knowing how precious the pieces were. But they took a stall at the Grey Lynn Fair and the reaction to what they were selling was remarkable. People loved that the tivaevae was being made commercially. The pieces could be used around the house and not just brought out for special occasions. And they could be thrown in a washing machine. People started treating the tivaevae as accessible art - it was both on display and being used in everyday life.

Another of the pair's sources is a Maori woman, married to a Samoan and living in Samoa. What Kernick loved about her work was the combination of ancient and modern - she was using the traditional carved wooden blocks but the printing had the contemporary look Aucklanders have come to favour. She points to white printing on white fabric, giving an almost embossed feel. Not all the work is so minimalist. Kernick points out cloth in a rich Pacific blue which, she says, the artist jokingly calls her "Ralph Lauren" range.

"She's taken something that is so Grey Lynn and turned it into something chic."

Kernick talks of the different Pacific symbols that have become well-known - the breadfruit and four-petal flower designs, which have become two of the most recognisable motifs in Auckland. And then there are the designs derived from the traditional Samoan tattoos worn by men.

She sings the praises of local textile designer Ingrid Anderson. "This pohutukawa print just sells and sells. People love it because it's so simple." She mentions, too, a Cook Islander, Elena Tavioni, and her shop in Mt Eden. "Elena's uncle is a master carver in Rarotonga. The Rarotongan printing blocks are huge. A lot of these fabrics can be drapes or throws." Tavioni is another who came under the mentoring eye of Paddy Walker.

And then Kernick returns to the practical side of things, talking about the growing popularity at Bella Pacific of New Zealand-made tivaevae kits, designed by Jenny Hill, allowing you to sew your own set of cushions.

Is this the modern version of the "No.8 wire, DIY" story? It's certainly a smart alternative in cash-strapped times, echoing what Stephanie Overton had to say about where we should look for inspiration.

In the 90s we may have loved bland and minimalist ... perhaps now a wander through our suburbs will be a lot more intricate and colourful.

Overton Design

Steph.overton@mac.com
021 965120

Tav Pacific

937a Mt Eden Road
09 6257353
Pacific art, lifestyle fashions, Jewellery & accessories

Bella Pacific

228 Jervois Rd, Herne Bay
09 361 5060
www.bellapacific.com

Ingrid Anderson Textile Designs

Phone: (09) 422 4000
Fax: (09) 425 9549
Mobile: 0274 424 560
Email: info@iatextiledesign.co.nz
Address: 44 Guy Rd, RD1, Warkworth