(Instrumental music) NARRATOR: Today on Spectrum we turn to the fount of the fashionable.

Where design ideas find their form in fabric and where local fashion designers try their skills to produce distinctive Hawaiian apparel.

Clothing is something we all share.

It is a universal language that can say so many different things about ourselves.

It can be conservative, corporate identification.

It can be bold, maybe even outrageous.

A look into the future.

Fashion in Hawaiʻi has grown up in the past years.

It is now among the top five largest industries in the state with more than 150 companies producing garments of different styles for all ages.

In Hawaiʻi, our fashion can say much about our environment, the colors, the lifestyles, the islands and the uniqueness.

How do some of the local designers make their statements of person and place?

Before any statements can be made, one must first learn the elements the fundamentals.

In fashion design.

Those basics are taught in classes such as the senior design class at the University of Hawaiʻi by Gloria Furer.

Gloria Furer / University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Fashion Design teacher: Well, fashion designers are generally portrayed in movies or when you see them on television shows as well-dressed, generally, in their style, in their showrooms, perhaps with beautiful fabric and some lay it out on the floor, whatever.

The working designer is totally different.

They generally work in the most comfortable clothes they can, because it's hard work.

It's very active work sometimes.

And the students see the difference when they go out for field experience.

And we try to impress them all the time on the fact that it isn't a glamour job.

There's a little glamour at the end, perhaps when they do the fashion show and they are accepted.

That's their day in the spotlight.

But the rest of the time there behind the scenes working.

When I returned here to the faculty in 1958, I was asked to do a survey of the businesses - fashion and merchandising – and the response was that they really needed new people coming out.

The fashion industry had been going for about 10 years, it just mushroomed.

And they saw the need for a pool of creative talent to draw upon for future.

Most of the manufacturers were husband and wife teams, which just developed the, the woman could make interesting clothes for her children.

That husband saw the necessity for going out and selling these.

And it just sort of mushroomed that way.

At was a period in time in which you could do no wrong and in manufacturing that the product was wanted by everybody.

And it just grew like Topsy.

Very few had formal training of any type there were a few, but they were minimum.

NARRATOR: As a result, the emphasis of the university's home economic clothing causes was redirected from personal sewing, to creating garments for the public.

Gloria Furer / University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Fashion Design teacher: To curriculum that we have today, we strive to develop the creative talents of the students and to inspire them towards innovative thinking.

At the same time, give them a background in management and leadership skills so they can make decisions in this fast-changing, fast-paced international world that they're going into.

We're very fortunate to have a large collection of historic garments, both Asian and Western.

And we use these garments to develop this creative talent in the students.

So we bring the garments in, they can examine them, see how details are done and it's a constant learning process.

They are encouraged to go out into the community, we take field trips to the Honolulu Academy of Arts, the Bishop Museum, the Mission Houses Museum.

We've even had a speaker from astronomy, give us a slide show on the rings of Saturn, just to show the students that any place is a place where you can get ideas from.

They research the libraries, historical magazines, and use this as background.

They also are taught to pick up the trends which are happening in the current marketplace.

They read Women's Wear Daily, American Fabrics, other source material for designers.

And then they go and research to get their own ideas rather than copying the name designer who is already in the market.

NARRATOR: By the end of the four years, a graduate of the university's fashion design program will be equipped to start his or her own business.

Not all students in the program aim for a professional career.

But for those who do, they have their expectations.

Trudy Nakasone/Design Student: I wanted to work in Hawaiʻi for a while, just gaining experience then later trying the mainland market, just to see how different it is.

And probably come back and bring the experience back here.

Eunice Kunimitsu/Design Student: I've worked in the factory, a factory here in the islands and it's really interesting how the factories here are and I'd like to get, gain more experience on the mainland.

Because it was, it's really hard here.

It's competitive.

The islands are small, and the market well, there's not a high, very high turnover here.

So I'd like to just broaden my design skills on the mainland, perhaps LA and I'd like to go to New York.

Definitely.

That's where it's at.

NARRATOR: It's a long step from the classroom to the commercial fashion world.

Here at Malia, designers create for a customer they know well.

MARY FOSTER: I think you're gonna like them.

NARRATOR: More than 20 years ago, Bill and Mary Foster began a small dress company in Honolulu.

Today that company Malia International is Hawaiʻi's leading manufacturer in women's resortwear, shipping nearly 90% of its line to the mainland.

Malia's President Bill Foster explains the company's growth Bill Foster/Malia International: We started off with a company that was really quite small and devoted really to local marketing.

And we made the decision to go to the mainland primarily because the tourist market in 1960 wasn't anywhere near what it is today.

And that seemed to be the place to go.

But that's a highly sophisticated market and it took us a long time to learn how to deal with it.

But bringing to that market, resort clothing, which was influenced deeply by the people, the cultural heritage of the islands, the environment, that's the sea and the sky and the prints and and the leisure living of the islands was something that we were able to capture and I think is largely responsible for the fact that we continue to grow.

NARRATOR: Mary Foster, also known as Malia, is the Director of Design and knows her customer profile well.

Mary "Malia" Foster/Malia International: I designed for the Malia woman.

The Malia woman has been very carefully defined over the years.

She is probably somewhere between 18 and 60.

Even my mother who's 83 years old, wears Malia and she's an active woman.

She's a responsible woman.

She's.. loves color.

She does not want to go unnoticed.

She has a good time.

She's happy.

She knows that these clothes reflect her spirit.

She likes dogs and books and a career.

She might even like antiques like I do.

Yes, I think I am the Malia woman.

(PHONE RINGS) Mary Foster: Malia.

Oh, hi, Kay, I'm Fine.

How are you?

A good day.

That's that - terrific.

The difference between designing for a mass market or a volume house and custom individual designing, there are two major differences.

One is that our market is so much greater, we have to be aware of it more on a constant basis.

We have to be aware of its position.

We have to be aware of the things that influence it like economics, weather.

We have to be aware of how it changes, and it can change very readily, very rapidly.

We have to respond quickly, as quickly as we can.

When we do our own fabrics, of course, it takes us a little time, but we have to respond to it.

Also, when you have mass marketing and mass production, you have along with that, more concerns, and with more concerns, you have to have a team.

It's not humanly possible for one person to take care of the things as they mount up.

So that's why we've developed the design team here.

Reiko Hori/Style designer: I like to make it simple like.

Mary Foster: Okay.

Reiko Hori: So I would eliminate this waistline to make this dress it's pretty simple and take down.

NARRATOR: This in house team of designers and artists create the two essential characteristics of the Malia line - the fabric design and the style of its cut.

Reiko Hori: This stripes I don't care for very much so I want to replace some like this.

NARRATOR: Mary Foster meets often with her team supervisors, Director of Art Whitney White and style designer Reiko Hori.

Here they critique a dress design sample before it goes into production.

Reiko Hori/Style Designer: Slimmed down in the side.

I think it's looks not long.

Mary Foster: Better.

Reiko Hori: Accent by a sash.

Whitney White: Don’t you think this looks rather bare?

Want color.

Reiko Hori: Stripes.

Mary Foster: It's gonna help a lot.

Reiko Hori: That way so you can see white button... Mary Foster: No more yardage?

Reiko Hori/Style Designer: Uhh we that - we have to work it out.

I’m sure.

Mary Foster: It will take more.

Reiko: Yes.

Mary: Terrific.

Reiko: But looks nice this thing.

Mary "Malia" Foster/Malia International: The exclusivity of Malia's fabric design is a very important factor in our uniqueness.

We have our own art studio here.

And we can do anything we want to on fabric.

We have wonderful resources in the Orient for printing.

And many mainland manufacturers don't have those advantages.

Whitney Foster White/Director of Art: We design our fabrics in primarily three different ways.

Probably the majority of them come right out of the artists own creative minds through magazines, libraries, bookstores, card shops, taking a hike, whatever, you know, whatever they want to do, and they develop ideas as guides and present them and we take them from there.

Designer: Direction of these lines and bring them inwards instead of yeah.

MARY: I'd like that same wind sail effect that you have there in here.

I agree.

Whitney Foster White/Director of Art: Second way would be through direction.

If we want a certain story if we want a certain look.

Let's say we feel like taking off on woodblocks or primitives or animals.

Then we specifically designed prints more as a as a one on one team effort.

And the third way would be specific direction we need graphic we need a monotone we need you know a specific floral of some sort.

NARRATOR: While a style may begin with a sketched out idea, it is here in the pattern room with style designer Reiko Hori takes the abstract, and makes it into a garment called a sample.

This sample allows the designer a chance to determine if the style and the fabric complement each other and to make changes before it goes into production.

The samples are made by Reiko’s staff who cut the master patterns and lay them out of the fabric before sewing them together.

Mary "Malia" Foster/Malia International: I spend many days, every year, traveling to stores and talking to hundreds of ladies who love Malia or who maybe don't love Malia.

And very often, they tell me they need pockets, they need sleeves, they want to cover up.

They're involved with air conditioning.

They can't wear a sundress on every occasion.

Why don't you make sleeve dresses?

Why don't you make sportswear all kinds of suggestions, compliments and criticisms.

And it's putting those in and using that feedback that makes us respond.

NARRATOR 15:43 Once the sample has been approved, its design goes into production.

The fabric is laid out on tables and then covered by markers or sheets of pattern tracing.

Cutters slice through many layers of fabric at once, producing numerous pieces of the same pattern in different materials.

It goes straight then the pieces are bundled and sent to the other side of the factory to be sewn.

Each seamstress has her own specialty.

Collars, sleeves, seams.

The garment begins to take shape as it moves from one machine to the next.

For Mary Foster production, even if it is mass production, is a personal business.

Here she speaks about the people who make the clothes.

Mary "Malia" Foster/Malia International 16:33 I think I look at every day the way they handle the fittings.

The painting the pelon - a tiny little piece fit on to a tiny little collar by hand.

It's not done by robot or lasers or any of those things.

I like it this way.

And I'm pretty sure I never want it to change.

NARRATOR 17:01 As distinct from the large manufacturers.

The Hawaiian world of fashion design also includes designers who create clothing in limited quantities.

These designers work out of their homes or small shops.

They are known as one of a kind designers and limited production designers.

12 years ago Jeffrey and Jan Berman began designing one of a kind dresses under the label of fabrication.

Later they added another line entitled Jeffrey Barr to offer lower price dresses and seperates in limited quantities to other stores.

Jeffrey Berman/Jeffrey Barr 17:41 The local market of which I feel that I'm very strongly involved in, up until very recently has only offered to the consumer two basic concepts.

One being the what we call today the traditional muʻu look which is basically a garment that is designed for that older more matronly, conservative type of customer or she offers the young junior California look.

90% of our women actually fall in between these two.

And that I feel that's the type of niche that I'm trying to fill for the local market in the way that I designed both on my couture level as well as on the Jeffrey Barr wholesale level.

I give my customer a well designed garment which I feel because of my type of background of being a designer and knowing good design, I offer to her a garment that is going to look good on her.

I know that my customer is not Miss Beautiful that everybody sees on stage as a model or that everybody wishes they look like a more realistic about that and know that my customer is basically a woman over 30 who physically is active, but her body is changing because as you get older this happens, she tends to be a little more conservative in the way she looks at her body and so I offer that type of thing in my clothing.

My objective is to make people look as beautiful as they want it to look dealing with their them physiologically and that they then put in the psychological input themselves which then carries the way they look in clothing.

Because in reality, unless you psychologically feel good about yourself, you're never gonna look good in anything at all.

NARRATOR 19:48 On the second floor above his fabrications retail store in Honolulu, Jeffrey Berman works with seamstresses and assistants, creating samples for the Jeffrey Barr line.

Why?

Jeffrey Berman/Jeffrey Barr 20:00 Why am I a fashion designer?

I'm a frustrated artist.

I think most people who are really into the fashion end of it, the true fashion end of it are probably people who have been into other art fields, and have found that it's very difficult to make a living off it.

So why not figure a way of doing what you like to do or some branch of it and still make money.

I really love what I do.

The glamour?

That's another thing.

Yes, it's magnificent to see your things up there on stage, you know, and everybody clapping and screaming, I'm how marvelous it is.

But I think the real crux of it is, whether what you're doing is what people want, and whether they're going to be willing to buy it.

You can do and design the most glamorous, most beautiful things in the world.

But if they don't sell, you know, it's another story.

It's like a normal artist.

And when he - I've always looked at artists and the way they operate, you've got to be more realistic about what you do.

And realize that if you want to produce something that has glamour, statement, field design to it be my guest to do it.

And I believe I do that.

But you must preface it with the fact of knowing that it has to be something that people do want.

And that unless you really look at that realistic land in itself, the glamour - if it exists- will soon lose itself very quickly, because if nobody wants it, it's not glamorous.

NARRATOR 21:40 NATS: Now check with you later.

NARRATOR: Gaye Pope specializes in hand dyed silk garments, and uses her home as a workplace.

Because of the unique dyeing process, she cannot duplicate garments exactly.

And therefore is known as a one of a kind designer.

Gaye Pope/Silks/Honolulu 21:58 To design a one of a kind piece is basically a fun effort, because it takes your imagination, whatever creativity you can muster up, and you're doing what you want to do.

So you put your best efforts into that rather than having someone say, I'd like 200 pieces of that exact style.

To me, that's that's death, I couldn't do that.

It would it would kill any kind of creativity that I had at all to take one piece and and put whatever colors I wanted to into it takes some energy, whereas putting that energy into 200 pieces at a time I got through with with a lot of different pieces of the same thing energy would be gone and there wouldn't be any, any interest left in it.

So I can put all of that energy into one piece and have something that I like that hopefully someone else will like too so that I can market it fabric that I use is all silk.

It's milled in Shanghai and I import it from Shanghai.

When it arrives here here it's white.

And I mixed the dyes.

When I decide what colors I'm going to use usually when I walk out in my workshop and start in the morning, I have some idea of what kind of colors I'm going to use for the day.

What I'm doing with this is hand painting a tunic top.

When I hand paint, I always cut the piece first so that it can be individually painted and I know exactly where I'm going to put a design.

So I treat the silk as though it were a piece of canvas laid out flat.

That way I can really see where I'm going to put my design and start to paint it this works a lot better having it flat this way they can control the lines better.

The dyes don't run NARRATOR 24:13 Like many one of the kind designers Gaye does much of her own sewing.

She also contracts with professional seamstresses such as Yoko when numerous orders come in.

Unlike a large volume house which operates continuously Gaye's production is limited by how much she can accomplish.

This in turn has affected her approach to design.

Gaye Pope/Silks/Honolulu 24:39 When I first began designing I had to learn how to sew first.

So I pieces stayed very simple because my sewing knowledge was so poor.

And then the line kind of grew from there and I added kimonos and pants and camisoles and long dresses that could all work together.

And they've stayed simple.

I don't use lots of structured lines in my clothes, I don't have zippers, no darts, the silk is so hanged so well draped so well by itself that I feel it doesn't need to be structured by any kind of extra little sewing techniques that you would put into heavier fabric.

NARRATOR: Gaye and her assistant Mary, move the dye vats outside and go to work creating one of a kind garments.

Gaye Pope/Silks/Honolulu: I do not design for any specific woman.

I think more it would be a concept of a woman who is an interesting imaginative, energetic person who enjoys wearing something different.

Who feels good about herself and clothes and really wants to wear something fun.

I think it's more that concept of person then it is an individual type or age group of woman that I designed for.

Living and Working in Hawaiʻi has influenced me greatly if you hold all the colors that I use are around me all the time.

Every day it's what I see.

Hawaiʻi is a very vibrant place.

And as a result, I think the colors that I work with are probably pretty vibrant what a wonderful compliment to me it has someone else buy something that I've made.

it's, it's wonderful.

It's probably why I'm still doing what I'm doing aside from the fact that I enjoy it if no one were buying things and wearing them I would probably stop, do something else.

It's it's great.

That's that's the whole thing of making a one of a kind design.

That That to me is that's the reward in itself.

That seeing someone else wear it and enjoy themselves in it.

NARRATOR : When you least expect it - glamour may appear.

In the cafe, around a corner, on the street, in an elevator.

The next time you're admiring the glamorous or the fashionable remember - behind every Hawaiian design lay thought inspiration, planning and many busy hands.

Watch now as the Fashion Guild of Hawaii presents the creations of many local designers and join us again on our next spectrum.

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