Henley at British Champs

Here are the Henley combo team swimming to native New Zealand music including the Haka.

You can see the tattoo designs which were hand painted and inspired from original Maori tattoos.

The girls all had New Zealand Fern leaf head dresses which were coated in bling.

If you look closely at the neck/chest you can see an imitation of a Maori fish hook jade necklace, I chose the fish hook as it represents luck and safety across water. There is a large sew on Swarovski gem which you can see shining in the picture above.

Since the girls have make-up restrictions in Synchro rules, i painted the tattooed faces on the back to further the theme of Maori tradition.

The black and red costume itself is inspired from the outfits Maori women wear for the traditional Women’s haka, thye wear black, beige and red woven outfits. There are dark red crystals on the red accents and light crystals on the beige. Crystals don’t show up very well in pictures but are stunning in real life.