Re-dressing Materiality: Robes Mission from 'Colonial' to 'Cultural' Object, and Entrepreneurship of Kanak Women in Lifou

At the center of the article is the complex semantic and symbolic dimensions of the robe mission - an introduced garment, which has been appropriated as a versatile outfit by Kanak women. In time its materiality, meanings and values have been transformed. As Kopytoff has argued 'what is significant about the adoption of alien objects ... is not the fact that they are adopted, but the way they are culturally redefined and put to use' (1986:67). The Chapter also takes into account the recent flourishing entrepreneurship on the mission dress which involves Kanak women who design, manufacture and market the dress both locally and across islands.