In 2004, artist Rona Ngahuia Osborne, designer Dan Mace, and Lindsay Mace, business manager extraordinaire, joined forces and launched Native Agent’. Since then their business has grown steadily and has something of a cult following.
Native Agent’s flagship store is situated in the creative suburb of Kingsland.
Best known for their own brand of exquisitely crafted cushions, quilts and clothing, the store also showcases some of the best design, art, fashion, music and culture New Zealand has to offer.
Central to Native Agent’s aesthetic is the creative handiwork of designer and artist Rona Ngahuia Osborne. Inspired by the meeting of Maori and Pakeha cultures in New Zealand’s colonial past, she creates woollen blankets, cushions, linen and clothing that have won a place in many hearts, and homes.
In 19th century New Zealand, Native Agents were representatives of the crown. They were fluent in the Maori language and therefore able to advocate for and assist Maori with land transactions and other matters of law. Osborne’s partner Dan is a descendant of a Native Agent, and this title seemed an appropriate name for their new venture, an agency where the best ‘native’ New Zealand design could be showcased to the world.
Osborne’s work is rich in symbolism, weaving together stories that reflect her family’s history, stories of the blending of bloodlines and the coming together of many people.
Woollen blankets were common items of trade between European settlers and Maori, so it is fitting that they form the foundation for many of Osborne’s works. She adorns them with layers of shape, colour and iconography representative of New Zealand’s cultural history and symbols of the natural world.
Many of the defining themes in the work that Osborne creates as Native Agent make historical references to land struggles that led to conflict and war, the trading of muskets and blankets for land, and the extinction of native flora and fauna. These struggles are as relevant today as they were at the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.
The work created as Native Agent has a profound resonance that speaks of Aotearoa’s combined histories, wild places and people. These stories add to our sense of identity and capture something of the unique place we call home.
Tags: blankets, clothing, cushions, Fashion, Made from New Zealand, Native Agent, New Zealand, quilts
