on the watteau pleat

The holoku...has been definitive of Hawaiian ethnicity…Old Hawai'i came to an end with the overthrow of the monarchy in 1893; the cultural tension from this event has never been resolved, and visual reminders of Old Hawai'i continue to be used to show kinship with the failed monarchy. The holoku- is one such reminder.

Linda Boynton Arthur, PhD
Professor and Curator
Washington State University

Hawai’i’s geographic location (the most isolated island chain on the planet) coupled with its strategic position (for military and trade) creates a place for cultures to collide in unusual ways. And often these collisions remain intact forever, like insects in amber.

Take the Watteau pleat. Watteau pleating is a beloved convention of Hawaiian clothes but where did it come from? In the 1800s Boston missionaries were allowed to live on the islands and brought with them many crazy ideas including enforced clothes wearing. The fashion rage at the time was a revival of the watteau pleat which was worn in European tea dresses and named after Rococo painter Antoine Watteau. Hawaiians adopted it into the mu’umu’u lexicon and the pleat has stayed elegantly in place on the back of a holoku ever since.