Australia’s “Public Island Society” brand will be featured on the 2023 PNG Fashion and Design Week Runway.
Australian born Tongan fashion designer and founder of the Public Island Society brand, Iki Haangana, will showcase his designer collection at the 2023 PNG Fashion and Design Week Runway on the 19th of August 2023.
CEO of the PNGFDW Runway 2023, Mrs. Janet Sios is excited to see how this runway, over the years, has been able to inspire a lot of great talent and creativity by designers not only in PNG, but also abroad.
She pointed out how important it was to have international designers on their platform each year and how collaborations and networking can also assist many of our local designers as well, at different levels.
For Iki Haangana, it all began with him growing up surrounded by sewing machines his whole life, he comes from a long line of seamstresses.
His mother learnt how to sew from her grandmother, who had in turn learnt from her mother. “My grandmother told me how her mother taught her to sew using the treadle sewing machine which is powered by a foot pedal that is pushed back and forth to run the needle,” he said.
However, growing up he had no interest in these machines or in becoming a fashion designer, he turned to showing more interest in becoming an artist like his grandfather.
Iki was always seen with a sketchbook in hand and in Year 12 topped the school in visual Arts, not long after he won a $5000 shopping spree from his artistic hands that he really turned his attention towards the fashion industry.
He fell in love with everything, creativity, the fashion shows, the cut throatiness of it all, the runway productions, but most of all the clothes.
Since then, Iki has gone on to work and showcase with Pacific Runway, Pacific International Runway, Westfield’s, Western Sydney Fashion Fest, Global Indigenous Runway, Australia’s Next Best Designer and many more.
Public Island Society is a co-ed ready-to-wear brand that blurs the lines of high-end fashion and streetwear creating a vibrant and over the top & off beat elegance, its rebellious, it’s playful and its main aim is to make a humble mark in the fashion world while creating a fun new niche-like sub-culture, one of creativity and inclusivity.
Iki said it’s more than just t-shirts and pretty dresses to Iki, it’s about journeys, relationships, ideas and cultures. It’s about storytelling and our history., it’s also about creating a different world with a different society, a Public Island Society.
