Shop A Le'a finale

Nadine Kam photo and videos
One of my favorite looks, from Spiral Girl, from Ala Moana magazine's Spring Trends show, one of the finale events for Ala Moana Center's Shop A Le'a.

Last week's Ala Moana Center Shop A Le'a left me exhausted. With so many events going on, rushing there and back to the office before returning again for events later at night for certain events, I felt the same kind of stressed energy as at New York's Fashion Week.

At one point I had to gas up the car and was in such a rush I drove off with the gas cap on top of the trunk. So then I had to make an extra trip to BMW for a $31 replacement. Grrr!

It was the best model I've seen for what a true fashion week could be like here, with its six days of events and fashion shows, with a quartet of local designer collection launches. Both Richie Miao and Andy South received much-deserved standing ovations for their respective Lovelessizm and South by Andy South showcases.

It's just great that we have designers who have the know-how to entertain while presenting their stories on stage.



This is something I talked about a while back with Lynne Hanzawa O'Neill, who presented her "Rules of the Runway" March 26 on Centerstage, and recapped her March 23 "Catwalk 101" tips.

I asked her once how she could be so relaxed during New York Fashion Week when she's producing more than a dozen shows in a week's time. She said what makes it easy is that it's very turn-key there. Most of the official shows are in one location, so the set up, all the lighting and sound technicians are in place. I even see the same security guards year after year.

Shows start on time because the designers know they have to be out of a venue so the next one can be set up. It gets to be very formulaic, something we don't have here because there is no established venue and every designer starts from scratch, which is hard.

I think any kind of Fashion Week here should ideally be in one venue. It's too hard to get around here because of traffic. (We should have built rail 30 years ago.) Many people who wanted to catch the shows missed them because they were stuck in traffic. That's one of the things so great about New York. I could easily cover any 40 blocks in 15 to 20 minutes, so never missed a show due to geography. Through oversleeping after staying up til 5 a.m. some days, yes.