Lee Erihāpeti Williams

Lee Erihāpeti Williams (Waikato-Tainui, Te Rarawa, Whanganui, Kotimana) is a costume designer, textile artist and creative practitioner whose work centres the stories carried within cloth. Raised among makers, stitchers and storytellers, her creative lineage spans Māori, Scottish and whāngai heritage — a braided whakapapa that shapes her approach to design, identity and belonging.

Working from Paetuia Studio, Lee draws on more than two decades of excellence across costume, fashion and textile practice. Her work blends technical precision with narrative depth, exploring the transformative power of garment construction, handwork and material storytelling. Lee’s practice spans costume design for performance, textile-based artworks, commissions, mindful fashion collections and stitch-led explorations that honour traditional making while embracing contemporary form.

For Artists Open Studios, Lee presents garments, textiles, process work and early pieces from her emerging Paetuia Fashion Collection. These works invite viewers into a space where making becomes an act of grounding, remembering and returning home — shaped by whakapapa, by whenua, and by the long history of seamstresses and makers who came before her.