I recently had a
super fun shopping trip to Hawaii and uncovered some great little treasures in
vintage and thrift stores in Honolulu, in Maui and on the Island Of Hawaii.
Here are a couple great Hawaiian shirts that I picked up on that little trip:
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Mens Vintage Hawaiian Shirt Rayon Tahiti Label 1950s L Tiki Hula Made in Japan[/caption]
Platos Closet in Honolulu
One thing I regret was not having the time to check out these vintage clothing stores in Honolulu-
Spark,
Barrio Vintage, and
Baileys Antiques and Aloha Shirts.Maybe next time!
The only store I was actually able to visit in Honolulu was called
Platos Closet (where I also did
a parking lot buy you won't believe!). In the store itself, we found neat clean racks of clothing, well-organized into sizes and colors. There were men's, women's, but alas mostly very young people’s clothes.
The most interesting thing I noted was
all the shoes had 4-5" heels and well, I was wondering exactly *who*they were catering to!
There wasn't any women's or men's vintage clothing to be found. However, I did discover an amazing pair of blue patent croc wedges with 5" heels, IN THE BOX, never worn, from Jeffery Campbell-what a find! Also, a great pair of Tony Lama ostrich
cowboy boots - very cool!
But the best thing I found was a nice young woman who came into the store to sell her Jimmy Choo shoes, that
were refused because the heels weren't HIGH enough!
I did what any self respecting vintage dealer world do - I said, "I'll take them!"- or did I scream that? I can't remember. At any rate, I bought them, and a bunch of other designer things from the trunk of her car, in the dark, in Honolulu, Hawaii. Super fun night!
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The Jimmy Choo shoes![/caption]
In Maui, we shopped a really cute vintage/modern designer boutique called
LeRu Atelier, at 505 Front St # 203 in Lahaina , Maui, Hawaii. It was a true boutique - cozy, with a smattering of vintage items and the owners own design pieces, which were gorgeous.
Larissa Williams, who was a stylist to the stars and a model to boot,is the owner and designer. The *shop girl* (Bonnie Paterson as in the photo) was incredibly helpful and cheerful, allowing us to try a number of things on my model friend, Amber, who by the way is a fantastic travel photographer
(Ambra, International Freelance Photographer).
In these photos she is wearing a super black and white striped silk tunic from Pauline Trigere, 1970s. Of course, I promptly purchased it for my online store at
www.thebestvintageclothing.com-coming soon, I promise!
She then put on a fabulous vintage Mui Mui hot pants suit, in bright blue and white-- it’s very "Pink ", don't you think?
The red awning striped dress is the owner Larissa Williams’ very own design and Amber would have bought it had she just had the budget for it, because it looked fantastic on her! It was made of scarf silk and light as a feather. It was really reasonably priced, too. I highly recommend this store when you visit Lahaina on Maui.
Glass from the Past - Honomu, Big Island
The last store we visited was on the way to Volcanoes National Park in Honomu. The shop,
Glass from the Past, had a vast array of Hawaiian
men's shirts from all eras. They even had one made out of old 1940s black floral drapery fabric - that was a first for me! The store had lots of old glass bottles and all kinds of interesting odds and ends along with a bit vintage clothing.
There were some good buys on the vintage front but I had to be picky due to lack of suit case space on this last day. I did buy 2 nice Hawaiian shirts , rayon prints from the 1940-50s and a pair of Britannia jeans with the tags still on from the 1970s.
Britannia started making jeans in the mid
1970s ( I think) so maybe these were the earliest - let's hope! The store owner, David Ackerman was very nice, very helpful and gave me a really generous discount. I'd definitely pop into
Glass from the Past and check it out once in a while for his latest finds.
Hawaii was on place I didn't expect to find great vintage clothing. I didn’t have time to shop the many great vintage stores there, but I hope you enjoyed a little vintage shopping vicariously through me for now!
Photos courtesy of:
Ambra, International Freelance Photographer
