The Honolulu Advertiser - Island Life | By Paula Rath

Tuesday, September 7, 1999

Company celebrates 40 years of aloha

Prior to the late 1950s, the muumuu might best have been described as Mrs. Cleaver meets the missionaries.  Usually shapeless, in bold color-saturated prints, it did a great deal to camouflage the female figure and little to flatter it.

Then along came Joan Andersen.  Her roots were in fashion; her family founded the Scott Shoe Company in 1933.  Blond and beautiful, she was a model and beauty queen until she briefly left the islands to study fashion design in New York.

 Andersen and her mother, Jean Scott, began designing women’s aloha wear on the porch of the shoe factory in 1959.  Their first creations were a far cry from traditional muumuu: shapely silk Chinese cheongsams over capri pants.

Princess Ka'iulani Fashions was born.

During the past 40 years, this family-owned and-operated business, located in Kalihi, has brought island women an elegant, feminine approach to our unofficial state dress.  Andersen has a knack for taking what’s trendy in fashion worldwide and adapting it to meet the needs of Hawaii women.

In the 1960s, styles were influenced on one hand by Jackie Kennedy and on the other by hippie chic.  Andersen simultaneously adapted the slim silhouette and floaty, feminine, earth mother influences.  The result: Charming, wearable garments that flew out the doors of Carol & Mary, Liberty House and McInerny in Hawaii, and Bonwit Teller and Bergdorf Goodman in New York.

Finding fabrics in Hawaii was a challenge because the textile manufacturers required orders of 3,000 yards or more for custom prints, and Andersen was determined to limit quantities.

 “It’s a small island, and I didn’t want women to see themselves coming and going,” she said.

Shopping in the garment district of New York, Andersen found Mainland fabrics and notions appropriate for her designs.  Dotted Swiss, eyelet, gingham, voile and laces became her signature.  She embellished her muumuu with grosgrain ribbons, lace trims and ruffles.

Her island fashions were not limited to muumuu.  Among her biggest sellers in the ‘60s was the  “mini-hopper,” a short jumpsuit with a scoop neck and a front zipper pull.  She also popularized a long, but toned skirt over “hot pants,” which were also known as short shorts.

The 1970s saw an influx of innovative fabrics.  Practical knits appealed to Andersen, so she designed a knit line for Nance Lang, a high-end women’s wear boutique formerly in Kahala Mall.

Empire waists adapted perfectly to the Princess Ka’iulani look.  Andersen wove ribbons through lace trims to create a frame for the face or design detail at the wrist or hem ruffle.  Her love of flowers became evident as she sprinkled daises and roses on the bodices and skirts of her elegant muumuu.

In the mid-1980s, Andersen’s daughter Jill (now Cullinan) returned to Hawaii from a successful New York modeling career.  Her innovative marketing ideas took the company in new directions.  She introduced a bridal business, and provided custom design for hula halau in Hawaii and Japan, as well as graduation muumuu for island schools.

Princess Ka'iulani Fashions responded in the 1980s to the working woman’s dilemma:  How can I adapt a muumuu to my career?  Andersen began to offer several options in length.  With the increasing popularity of Hawaiian prints, she began to use more prints, coordinating them with solids and trims.

With the 1980s came the advent of cheap knock-offs, threatening the livelihood of many Hawaii designers.  It was a critical crossroads, and the Andersens responded to the discounters with the message: “We will never lower our quality.  Rather, we will increase volume by opening a retail store in Kalihi.”

“We found the new location made us more accessible to a wider clientele,” Cullinan said.  Following the move, they limited distribution to Liberty House, which remains their only outside vendor.

Princess Ka'iulani Fashions has not strayed far from its roots, even as the millennium approaches.  Lace and trims adorn bodices and sleeves.  The Victorian look is an undercurrent.  Understated elegance is the tone.

With more than 2,000 designs in her pattern books, Joan Andersen still occasionally finds herself sketching an inspiration on the back of a napkin or business card.

Read more: Next