Mur Iau design on show

National, Normal
Source:

The National, Thursday 10th November 2011

HER label is called Shakha and the range Katie Harrison will be showing at Fiji Fashion Week 2011 is called ‘Mur Iau’ – a range she is hoping will draw ‘wows’ from fashion lovers come Saturday.
Mur Iau, derived from her mother’s Papua New Guinean dialect and translates roughly into “follow me”, is Harrison’s way of paying homage to her PNG heritage.
Harrison first found out about the Fiji Fashion Week (FJFW) through two male friends who were previously involved with FJFW, one as a model and the other as a designer, and decided last year to take part.
“What drew me to FJFW was that it was being called the South Pacific Fashion Show and I wanted to represent PNG,” she said.
She described her collection as having a tribal theme, her PNG heritage being a large influence on her designs and evident in the bright colours she used in her pieces, bright colours reminiscent of traditional PNG costumes and attire.
She said she started the label last year with a friend who would be unable
to attend FJFW because of family
commitments.
“I’m using this as a learning curve, coming into FJFW and I don’t have very high expectations. I just want to take it slow and see what I can learn from the experience because it’s my first show,” Harrison said.
“I’m nervous in the sense that I wonder if they’ll like my stuff, what they will think of it,” she said.
Harrison said she hoped to learn more about the mass production aspect of fashion, build up fashion contacts, learn from and share with other local designers, and capitalise on FJFW’s mentoring programme for designers.
She described her collection as bright, funky outfits that would make any girl stand out wherever she was.
She said her collection was also geared towards young women.
Harrison commended the quality of the models.
“I found a lot of them (models) are balancing work and school with their FJFW commitments and that’s what I want – strong independent women wearing my stuff with a ‘yes I can rock this’ attitude,” she said. – The Fiji Times