I’m still catching my breath after the Made in Maui County Festival. In the days leading up to it, I was thinking in pieces. A collar that still needed to go on. Buttons to finish. A stack of keiki shorts waiting for tags. I’d look at everything I’d made and somehow still see the list of things left to do. Then we got to booth 214, hung the clothes on the racks, and for the first time in weeks I could stand back and take in the collection as a whole.
When I say this collection was inspired by the Hawaiʻi I grew up in, a lot of that comes down to fabric. There’s something about a familiar floral or a piece of palaka that gets me before I’ve even decided what to make with it. I wanted that little spark of recognition in clothes that felt right for the way we dress now. Something you’d pull out of your closet because you know how it fits, you like how it feels, and you can get on with your day in it.
The Lāpule Shirt is a good example of how that works for me. The fabric had a big floral through the center and a smaller floral border along the sides. I used the large flowers for the main part of the shirt and saved the smaller print for the collar. I liked how you could see the big floral from across the booth, then notice the smaller one when you picked the shirt up. I spent a lot of time figuring out where to cut that fabric. Now I’m curious what the same shirt will feel like in a completely different print. I like the idea that you could come back for a shape you already love and still find something that surprises you.
One of my favorite parts of the weekend was seeing my kids and family in the fashion show. I’d seen the keiki shorts, the pocket tees, and the sport pants laid flat so many times by then. I knew those pieces by their seams and waistbands. Watching my family walk in them, I could finally see the things I’d been trying to get right from the beginning. How the fabric moved. Where the shorts sat. How each person made the outfit feel like their own. I kept thinking about how much I’d love to see those same pieces on a regular Saturday, long after the show was over.
I learned a different kind of thing back at the booth. I got to see what people reached for first and what they wanted to try on. Sometimes the piece I’d spent the most time thinking about would sit on the rack while someone went straight for a different one. I loved seeing what caught their eye and hearing what they were looking for. You can spend hours fitting something in the studio, but there’s a particular kind of clarity that comes from watching someone try it on and seeing what they do next.
Now that I’m back in Makawao and have had a little time to think, I keep coming back to the shapes I want to make again. I want to keep working on the fits that felt good on different people and see what happens when I make them in new fabrics. There are little things I already know I want to adjust, right down to how a waistband sits. And there are details, like the way I place a print on a collar, that I’d happily spend another afternoon working out.
To everyone who stopped by, tried something on, brought a friend over, or took a piece home, mahalo. I wish I’d taken more pictures. The moments I keep replaying are the small ones in between, when I looked up from whatever I was doing and saw someone holding up a shirt I’d finished just days before. I spent so much of the week before the festival thinking about getting that collection out the door. Now I get to imagine where those clothes go from here.
Kehau
