Laei Creatives

Bride & Groom Dressing for their bridal taualuga!

Tama'ita'i Samoa of the diaspora Miss Samoa NZ Paulina Soti & Miss Oriana Siva Academy (Melbourne) Painuulasi Bartsch Leaupepe!🌺

Miss Samoa Pageant Crowning Night Opening Number!🇼🇸

Our office for lastnight - Holsworthy High School dressing bub Brandina Afualo in taupou attire for their Samoan item/taualuga at tonights school multicultural showcase!
Thank you Kisa Yolene Tofilau-Tuala & Daniel Afualo for always booking and trusting us!

"Sauia lau afioga To'oā inā sa'asa'a"

Seuta'atia Ulusagogo Makayla (MK) Uso Mata'utia dressed for her 21st Birthday siva Samoa - Sat.9th Nov.

What an honor it was for our Team to dress the beautiful bride Sheree and her beautiful daughters Selina & Lani for their bridal siva Samoa!🇼🇸🇦🇸
STUUUUNNING tama'ita'i Samoa with their beautiful laei!❤️

Thank you for trusting us to dress you beautiful ladies and CONGRATULATIONS Sheree & Lemi! What a beautiful family!❤️

REGAL 🇼🇸🇦🇸😍

Tupua Tamasese Lealofi I, c.1902-05

Tupua Tamasese Lealofi and the scientist, Otto Tetens, who took this photograph, formed a close friendship after Mr Tetens arrived in Samoa in 1902 and set up the observatory at Mulinu’u, Apia (click image for full height).

Tamasese lived nearby and Tetens often breakfasted with him. Lealofi, the son of Titimaea, was a handy tufuga fai fale and he and his daughters assisted the German scientist with fale construction, making and fitting roof thatching and blinds, pola, for some of the buildings that housed observatory equipment. Tetens diary recounts that Tamasese’s daughters sometimes came to get water from his tank using empty coconuts as containers.

Though the family seat for Tamasese was at Vaimoso, he was apparently living at Mulinu’u at this time in an official residence following the resolution of the turbulent events of 1898-99. The death of paramount chief Malietoa Laupepa in 1898 had led to a power struggle among Tama-a-Aiga contenders for leadership, a contest that embroiled America, Germany and Britain in Samoan affairs, as all parties - local and international - tried to sort out a solution. The confused situation saw courtroom battles and armed conflict, and the eventual ascendancy of the popular Mata’afa Iosefo. At the height of this crisis Tupua Tamasese Lealofi had to seek safety on a British navy ship, where he spent several months under protection.

The disturbances led directly to the German annexation of Samoa, after which Tamasese was paid an annuity and lived peaceably at Mulinu’u, in close political collaboration with Mata’afa Iosefo. Later he moved to Vaimoso where he died in 1915, apparently of pneumonia and a throat infection.

Photo: Photographer Otto Tetens, © Christiane Niggemann, Bochum, Germany; digitised by Herwig Niggemann. Reproduced by permission. Cropped.
- T.Brunt.