Forte Tonga started with a needle, a screen, and a feeling that something was missing. The diaspora was growing — Tongans in Auckland, Sydney, Brisbane, Salt Lake — but the threads connecting them back home were thinning.

We set out to make clothing that carries the culture forward: pieces that a grandfather in Nuku’alofa and a teenager in South Auckland could both recognise as theirs.

Every collection tells a story — from Old Money honouring the pa’anga, to R19 repping the record, to drops built with the community, for the community.