Bilums with a twist
The colourful creations of Florence Jaukae Kamel
The first time she wore one of her creations into town it created a controversy. Onlookers thought she was crazy.
Papua
New Guinea is a land of surprises. What you expect is not what you get. So it goes with the bilum weaving of Florence Jaukae Kamel. The Goroka mother of five has started a stylish evolution by weaving bilum dresses.
The first time she wore one of her creations into town it created a controversy. Onlookers thought she was crazy. You don’t wear a bilum, you carry it. Put food in it.
The bilum is a way of life in PNG, as ubiquitous and practical a companion as a handbag is to an urbanite. In the past, bilum mainly meant the bag worn on a woman’s head to signify that she is married, and now it is used widely as a bag carried over the shoulder.
Jaukae Kamel had gone through an emotional marriage breakup when she turned to her roots and found comfort in weaving bilum, a tradition she had learned from her grandmother.
She was always drawn to fashion, par for the course for a weaving artist, and this time fate guided her hands to weave a dress instead of a bag.
She wanted to shake the establishment and look good doing it, so she made more dresses, other bilum creations, and wore them everywhere. The ‘controversy’ spread far and wide. Soon after, she started receiving orders and an industry was born.
It is because of Jaukae Kamel that bilum now means the cloth that the bags are woven out of, instead of ( just) the bags. Jaukae Kamel first showcased her creations in 2000 at the Miss PNG pageant and has gone on to show collections at the respected Stella Runway, exhibited at the Gallery of Modern Art in Queensland, Australia, given talks at Raffles College of Design in Sydney, taught and showcased her skills at the London College of Design, and at Parsons, a prestigious design school in New York.
She is the managing director and principal artist of Jaukae Bilum Products and the founder of the Goroka Bilum Weavers Cooperative (established in 2003 to share the success of the business and help less fortunate women) as well as the Goroka Bilum Festival, which she started in 2009.
As savvy a businesswoman as she is a designer, Jaukae Kamel held her first festival just before the popular Goroka Show, to take advantage of the influx of tourists. She also invited Pacific Trade Invest to see what she was doing. With the agency’s help she was able to hire other women to help her weave and the business grew. Since then, she has been in demand as a trainer, as a designer and as a motivational speaker. Prior to last September’s Bilum Festival, Jaukae Kamel was in Sydney as a liaison weaver with Australian group, Among Equals (see next page), a social enterprise focusing on empowering disadvantaged women and their families. Jaukae Kamel creates bilum dresses, hats and scarves in a variety of colours, patterns and materials (traditionally plant fibres but now wool) depending on the tastes and budget of the buyer. Her creations are all over the world, worn by fashionistas and fashion editors alike. Her wearable art has made her the face of contemporary PNG fashion. She now aims to open an online shop and to create more job opportunities for women.