Stories in every stitch: Pageant honors Cook Islands 'mamas', highlights traditional fashion

Carmena Wong, former Miss Universe-Cook Islands 1983, with 69-year-old Mama Rauti Para 2025, Tuainekore Taripo Kura, top left corner, with 82-year-old Mama Annie Santos, bottom right. Photos courtesy of G. Verspeek

By Lisa Leilani Williams

Auckland, NZ--She is a beauty pageant queen and the first Cook Islander to walk the Miss Universe stage in 1983, but Carmena Wong has taken those 80s memories and flipped them into a 2025 pageant walk celebrating the flair, fashion and x-factor of Cook Islands women over 55. 

The title of Mama Rauti Para, which translates to "the ripe leaves" of a culturally valued ti-plant, is more than a pageant for the hundreds of Cook Islanders who have cheered on their family matriarchs among the nearly 50 pageant contestants over the last three events.

The latest Mama Rauti Para, crowned on the weekend in Auckland, is 69-year-old Tuainekore Taripo Kura. 

The concept began in 2018, shortly after Wong and her family migrated to Auckland, where her mother, Rosie Blake, was serving as the Cook Islands' consular general.

Through Blake's work, "I just witnessed and appreciated all that our elders, and especially our mamas, do here in the community," Wong said.

"I saw how they supported and were always there for the work that had to be done. I wanted to give back and honor them...it's just turned into an event that owes so much to the team of volunteers and all our sponsors, who have helped to make this a night to remember for our mamas," she added.

Wong said the tickets tend to be snapped up by families and community supporters as the word spreads through the "coconut wireless," with a focus on a quality experience that prioritizes the comfort of the competitors. 

For the newly crowned Mama Rauti Para, the news of her win is still sinking in.

Sharing from her living room, surrounded by her gift swags and sponsorship prizes, and still taking calls from well-wishers and friends, Mama Tuainekore is emotional over her win.

She shared the design and tailoring as it took shape and was helped along by her support team, Helen Boaza and Naomi Perfect.

"I spent a month or so working on the main Pomare dress, and I was not 'sitting right' with it; there was something I wanted to fix, or check or add," she recalled.

She chose to go with more subdued and classic colors, honoring the traditional materials and color blocks of the Pomare gowns captured in black and white archives. "The iti (lace, usually broderie anglaise) is a big part of the dress, and I had to work on where it goes, the fabric layers, the neckline and the sleeves. I was working on it until it just felt right."

Two black bias bands are the only contrast color in the Pomare garment, said Mama Tuainekore—in remembrance of her brothers, music legends John Lindsay, who passed in 2021, and Tom, who passed in 2018.

Other than the stories in every stitch, what tells the contestants their gown is ready? For all wearers, the words are the same, Tuainekore said: "I feel beautiful."

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It's estimated that more than 100,000 Cook Islanders live outside their nation, and up to 95 percent of that diaspora are in New Zealand and Australia.

For the world's largest Polynesian city, Wong said the ways in which Cook Islands mamas come together across Auckland and the rest of the country to create unpaid wrap-around aroa for churches, fundraising, youth and visiting delegations, inspired her. 

Many in their mid-50s and older have spent decades raising Cook Islanders who have lacked the cultural context of the homeland to support their language and te akono'anga Māori while living the urban life as Pasifika minorities in New Zealand.

"Watching the mamas here, I thought of how even at home, with anything that happens, they're always in the background. When you think about our pa metua, our grandparents and our mamas, they're at home. They're doing such a thankless job. They never ask for much. They're always there when we want them, and they're never out in the limelight," Wong said.

 "I wanted to do something to give love back and show our thanks for our elders who play such a big role in our lives. We have to take time to appreciate them and say thank you, as much as we can, while we still have them with us," she added.

The idea of an event with a focus on celebrating garments unique to the Cooks, through a pageant for Cook Islands mamas started to form.

"I thought, wouldn't it be nice to do something that we can celebrate them and say 'thank you' to them, but also for them to come out and spend one day out of their busy lives, to actually be the showcase and be in the limelight, while at the same time looking after them and making sure they're in their comfort zone and enjoying the experience," Wong said.

From watching and observing the gatherings attended by Mama Rosie, and chats with a support team of family and friends that remain with the event to this day, the first pageant was born.

"I looked at what makes our mamas shine, and it came through in what we wear when we gather. What better way to celebrate our mamas than getting out there and wearing something that they love because they've designed it or sewn it, or both," she said. 

 While the TAV dress is the most iconic Cook Islands label and front of mind for generations of women across the Pacific, just over a century before the mid-80s, there was the pona Taiti, or the Pomare gown, a top-to-toe Tahitian take on the missionary Mother Hubbard dresses named after royalty which was also modelled by Cook Islands ariki, and came to convey beauty and grace for the wearer. 

The name rauti para represents the ripe or mature rau-ti, or ti-leaf, which denotes respect and mana as part of public gatherings in the Cook Islands. It's a vital part of garlanding and traditional wear during cultural events including dance, graduation, investitures and ceremonial welcomes.

In the Cook Islands, the term is also used in jest and song, with rauti-pi referencing societal references to youth and virility as per the younger plants being green/red supple and smooth, and rauti-para being the elders as per the ripe, larger, matured ti-leaf.

The love of jest and song, the cultural significance of the rauti, and the connotation of age, provided a phrase that decided the first event in 2018, said Wong.

Covid-19, however, brought the still-emerging pageant to a stop.

The 2025 pageant marked the event's comeback, and popularity is growing among sponsors.

Enter Cook Islands creative with a strong Tahiti lineage, Valerie Taruia-Pora. She watched the efforts of initiating and growing the Mama Rauti Para pageant, and has seen the influences and journeys led by the designers and the mamas themselves since 2018.

Pora, whose handpainted glassware is part of all the swag packs for all contestants, was also strongly influenced by her mother the late Mama Parau Tixier Taruia, whose 'pona Ta'iti' flair and Tivaevae embroidery skills made her a trendsetter for many Cook Islands women of her time.

Despite the reasons for its introduction by missionaries trying to cover up their converts in the name of “civilization,” Pora said the pareu gown, particularly the Pomare style, has evolved over the last two centuries.

"Once Christianity came, our pa metua wore them, but our grandmothers and mothers have personalised them. They have had more choices for colors and materials, and with the sewing and tailoring options around today, it's definitely the preferred formal island wear for our Cook Islands women," she said.

"Again, this year the competition really highlighted the creativity and craftsmanship of the mama Rauti Para mamas," Pora said. "The Pareu Purotu designs were playful, vibrant and full of personality. The clever mixing of bright and bold fabrics created standout pieces, and we all noted the uniqueness and expressive flair in every single design."

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