OUR NAME
MAKU is our founders name and it carries her Māori heritage.
As a child she was bullied for her Māori name, so for years she kept it quiet, not out of shame but out of the particular kind of caution that comes from growing up in rooms that weren't built for you.
One day she stopped keeping it quiet and gave it to everything she makes, and it turned out to be the most freeing thing she has ever done. A moment to heal her younger self, and to reclaim her identity.
Maku Fenaroli grew up knowing she was meant for a different life. She moved to Melbourne alone, no safety net, no contacts, and found herself through art.
How fitting that she also found herself again in reclaiming her Māori name.
MAKU Studios is the natural extension of that freedom. A woman who walked toward herself and built something that is entirely, unapologetically hers.
What she didn't do was ask permission.
OUR STORY
MAKU Studios was born in the most poetic way.
Maku (the founder) was deep in a creative identity crisis, stuck in a cycle of painting things she hated, and it was in that particular low that she picked up a brush and painted something just for herself because she couldn’t find anything she liked and she couldn’t afford the things she did.
The t-shirts were never meant to be anything. She painted them because she wanted to.
It was at that moment her love for art came back.
How cliché that the artist found her purpose in turmoil.
Welcome to our world of colour.
We want to leave you with Maku’s Mantra:
‘”I always tell my kids - Do not care about colouring in the lines, because no one ever said anything interesting about perfect.”
THE DOUBLE SKIRT TEST
Maku’s earliest memory of fashion is wearing a skirt to school and coming home that afternoon to tell her mum, with great excitement, that someone had said she looked pretty. The next day she wore two, the very first sign that pretty was never going to be interesting enough for her.
This brand is so much more than another pretty tshirt or dress. It’s an artist who despite all odds found the place she belongs. It’s permission to wear whatever makes you happy and to never settle for ordinary.
If that 6 year old two skirt wearing girl wouldn’t approve of the design, if it wouldn’t fill her with excitement, we wont make it.
OUR COMMITMENT
Our commitments are simple.
Our prints will always start as hand painted artwork.
We will never lean into fast fashion culture.
We will always care deeply about the quality and fit of our garments, because the canvas that the art lives on needs to be exceptional to allow the artwork to breathe.
We will never use plastic packaging, swing tags, and single use packaging.
We will always celebrate and champion human made.
We will only source ethically made garments
We are committed to minimising our footprint, we only have one planet and we are all responsible for it.
if it doesn't inspire us it wont be made.
