Dressmaking

A pretty damp, cold, dark, generally miserable day here on the Northern Frontier. Time for a bit of nostalgic wallowing, somewhere warmer.

This photograph was taken in Tonga, in the South Pacific. The young women are beating the bark of the paper-mulberry tree into thin strips which will be used to make tapa cloth, or masi as it is often known.

In former times the cloth was used for clothing on the islands of the South Pacific, particularly Tonga, Samoa and Fiji. These days cotton and other textiles have replaced tapa but it is still often worn on formal occasions such as weddings. Tapa is also widely used as decorative wall hangings and room dividers.

One of my previous blips shows how tapa was used for clothing.