Honolulu Fashion Week 2015 opening day

Nadine Kam photos
Honolulu Fashion Week’s “Live Aloha” show opened with Grace Lee, left, interviewing New York Fashion Week creator Fern Mallis, and local-born curator in charge of The Costume Insitute, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harold Koda.

BY NADINE KAM

Honolulu Fashion Week opened Friday with a marketplace of local brands and “Live Aloha” fashion show featuring about 25 local designers and brands at the Hawai’i Convention Center.

Among those represented, big and small were Malia Jones, Matt Bruening, Ari South, Roberta Oaks, Sig Zane, Bliss Lau, Reyn Spooner, Florencia Arias, Allison Izu, Rumi Murakami, Ten Tomorrow and Language of the Birds. Credit for styling the local showcases goes to Don Sumada, originally from Hawaii, who’s now a freelance editorial and fashion show stylist based in New York City.

One of the runway looks.


Non-flash video

The show opened with Grace Lee briefly interviewing special guests in town for the event, fashion royalty Fern Mallis, who started New York Fashion Week in 1993, and Harold Koda, the local-born curator in charge of the prestigious Costume Institute, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

I was able to interview both, who are as humble as can be given their stature in the fashion/museum world. My interview with Mallis ran prior to fashion week, and my interview with Koda is slated to appear in the paper Dec. 3.

I had a seat, but ended up sitting on the floor for the best video angle. As a result, everyone who said hello, like fashion show producer Lynne O'Neill and Harold Koda, had to bend way down to greet me. Sorry about that!

Pierre, dressed in an indigo kerchief for the show, at the CHAI Studio booth within the fashion week marketplace.

Jana Higa of Blue Bird Jewelry showed some of her latest creations in the market place.

Dexter Doi and Carol D'Angelo of Ecolicious, started their company with eco tote bags long before the plastic bag ban, and have since moved into apparel. Next year, they may enter the cut-and-sew phase of their business. Many locally educated designers know Carol as a former instructor at the University of Hawaii apparel design program and former curator of the UH Textile Collection.

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Nadine Kam is Style Editor and staff restaurant critic at the Honolulu Star-Advertiser; her coverage is in print on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Contact her via email at nkam@staradvertiser.com and follow her on Twitter, Instagram and Rebel Mouse.