SOAS Research Online

Abstract

For many, pattern and decoration express an ideology of visual pleasure, but the often-ostentatious designs fashioned by Pacific Islanders from fragile leaf fronds and imported fabrics tell a different story. Stamped or stenciled, plaited or bound, pattern making in the Pacific is concerned with making relations to identity and to land tangible in the most striking ways and the most economic fashion. Though trivialized and hence overlooked—especially for those patterns created by women on the surfaces of wraps, baskets, and mats of all kinds—nowhere does pattern flourish so vibrantly in the Pacific as in the medium of dress.