Wrapped in Tradition

(Maui Magazine, Sept-October 2011)

 Article about how native traditions and sensibilities influence 3 young women in their clothing design company.

"The brown-skinned beauties who for generations adorned book jackets and sheet-music covers, movie posters and travel ads, may have conveyed the romance of tropical islands, but their clingy sarongs and swishy grass skirts didn’t mirror reality.

What did real-life islanders wear before western missionaries introduced the all-concealing muumuu?

Hawaii’s benign climate called for fashion of simple construction and suitably cool material. Early Hawaiians, from makaainana (commoners) to alii (royalty), wore everyday clothing mostly fabricated from kapa, whose name, “the beaten thing,” refers to its laborious preparation. Kapa makers stripped the bark of the wauke (mulberry) plant, soaked and fermented it, then rhythmically beat it into a fine and surprisingly soft cloth."

Read the article in its entirety in the Maui Magazine online