Tania Nugent: Fashion in the Pacific is renowned for its vivid colours and patterns. A Cook Islands woman has taken this distinct style and created a unique line of high end fashion. Not only that, Ellena Tavioni and her label TAV have caught international attraction, strutting a very Pacific style on the world fashion stage.

Tania Nugent: So did you always like fashion?

Ellena Tavioni, fashion designer: I didn't know what it was when I was growing up. We just wore whatever. No. It didn't really exist here.

Henry Tavioni: She's (an) out there person. She likes to go and do things, and you know, she's always wanting new ideas and wanting to tackle everything at once.

Ellena Tavioni: I did it the hard way I guess. I'd learnt how to make a dress from a commercial pattern when I was at Manua High School. Just when I turned 20, I borrowed $2000 from the housing corp at the time, bought a couple of little domestic machines and started my own little business which I ran for about two years and of course I realised that the clothing industry was feasible and I could make a living from it, but at the same time I lacked, the technical knowledge, the full technical knowledge of how to construct a garment, make a pattern from scratch, colours all that kind of thing and knew I had to go to design school. I eventually got some information off a visiting tourist from Melbourne and was at the time working at the Melbourne College of Textiles. Six months later I was there. I made my way there and went to school there. Studied for a couple of years, worked for two years in Melbourne and then came back home and established TAV. We have 20 people working for us plus my uncles help out with the design of the patterns.

Tania Nugent: What strikes me about Ellena is her energy. Not just creatively but as a businesswoman. She's managed to get her product out there to international markets, New Zealand, Australia, even Japan - and that's not easy coming from this tiny isolated island of Rarotonga, in the middle of the South Pacific.

Ellena Tavioni: When you run a business on a tiny little island you have to remember to cater for everybody. You don't get fussy and say I'm only going to cater for this age group, so I've learned to cater for all sizes 24, 26 doesn't matter, and that's another reason why we have been successful I guess, because we can actually open a store and cater for everybody.

Female shopper: I'm here because I've ordered a piece for our trip to New Zealand, the world tournament for netball is happening, so we're all wearing TAV.

Male shopper: I just came to find a dress for my wife and my sisters come down to help me pick one out.

Tania Nugent: What do you think is the appeal of the TAV?

Ellena Tavioni: Many reasons really. It's easy to wear, it's comfortable, it suits a lot of people. If you notice we don't use zips in our clothes, we use a lot of cottons and lycras, natural fibres. But easy to put on, easy to take off.

Tania Nugent: What is it that you like about her dresses?

Vanessa Marsh, Miss South Pacific 2008: They're just a stunning fabric. The patterns are so bold and Polynesian. They're very eye captivating.

Ellena Tavioni: Traditionally our colours are earthy colours, that's because we didn't have any dyes in those days, and I'm talking hundreds of years ago. We did tapa printing which is a form of block printing and our dyes were just from vegetables. Red, black and brown, yellow - that was it. So traditionally we have those earthy colours, but of course now that we have access to different colours we are drawn to bright colours, and that's because of the environment too, we like bright colours.

Tania Nugent: Each TAV dress is a one off, thanks to a unique printing style that Ellena's developed. We can't reveal the technique on camera, but I can tell you that it's based around traditional Polynesian tapa block printing.

Ellena Tavioni: I would say that the printing part is the most important part of our business, that's what sets us apart from everybody else, and that's what makes it unique and that's what makes it. I mean, can you imagine if we didn't print our own fabric and if you had to rely on printers to do it for you, you would have to order a minimum of 1000 metres or something, whereas we can print 10 metres if we want, we can play with colours, we can change colours, it really is a lot of fun.

I went to Japan, and they have about half a million women doing hula dancing there and it's a hobby. In Japan I actually noticed, Hawaiian print bags, Pacific print, they love anything Hawaiian, and I thought well this is - I'm going to do a dancing print, a dancing girl and some drums, that kind of thing, they would love that. I have never done it before, but I thought since they appreciate it so much, I'm going to transfer it into a print.

Henry Tavioni: This is only the outline in the early stages, she wants dancing girls but what I'm doing at the moment trying to incorporate the traditional motifs to try and tie it to Rarotonga - I mean they have dancing girls in Hawaii or Tahiti, this is our way of tying it back to us using our own local motifs.

Tania Nugent: What's the reason behind this?

Henry Tavioni: We are trying promote our culture to start with and this is one way of promoting it and it's basically reviving our culture, this is what we are trying to do, try and keep it alive.

Ellena Tavioni: Because don't forget, when the missionaries came they destroyed all our carvings. Everything was destroyed. People were made to burn everything. They were even stopped from dancing. We lost a little bit, but we were lucky we recovered very quickly.

Tania Nugent: So it really is a bit of a revival that's going on?

Ellena Tavioni: Yes it is. Things have really changed. Twenty years ago,if you were an artist you (were regarded) as a bit of a bum. Everybody wanted to be in the office, that kind of thing. But now it's really good.

Tania Nugent: They're starting to reconnect?

Ellena Tavioni: Yes it's good and so many more artists are coming out.

Henry Tavioni: She is very inspiring, she gets me motivated. Yeah that's what Elena is like.

Ellena Tavioni: I'm just proud that I am able to utilise these designs from so long ago.

Well, it's my livelihood. First and foremost, this is it. Plus I enjoy it. I can never wait to go to work. I just can't wait to get into my factory, even as we speak, I can't wait to get back there. I Just love being in there and I come to life there.