shop savvy in honolulu

We make the fashion rounds of Oahu with our fashionista guide Kimi Chun, VP of the Peggy Chun Gallery, who shows us where to find her fashion faves and island treasures

Kimi Chun’s shopping
turns to play at INTO
as she models owner/
designer Alan Carrell’s
TURN dress, Paradisus
necklace and handmade
earingsWORDS LYNN COOK
PHOTOGRAPHY OLIVIER KONING

Walking into a store with Kimi Chun leads to hugs and laughs with an assortment of friends and fans. Oahu is a small island. “If you don’t know someone in the morning,” she says with her famous Kimi-grin, “you’re bound to be best pals by cocktail hour.” Walls of shops, like Na Mea Hawaii, are filled with the brilliant watercolours painted by her mother-in-law, artist Peggy Chun. Everyone Kimi meets asks about the newest Peggy painting or book, or where Kimi got her finely hand-woven hat. Kimi’s international art marketing work, a pair of toddlers and a creative designer-sculptor husband keep her well tuned to the island’s affairs, while her style would take her from California to New York.

The Big Fish

Glass Buddha head
and silver-agate
necklace by Paradisus
from INTO“What I love about Oahu,” Chun says as we jump into her SUV that serves as a moveable office and family car, “is that one road takes you all the way around the island and back. You really can’t get lost.” Plus, she and all her shopaholic pals revel in the open-air malls and fashion avenues cooled by Hawaii’s gentle tropical breeze.

Chun’s whirlwind shopping tour begins with a drive through the world-renowned neighbourhood of Waikiki, crowded with international designer shops such as Louis Vuitton and Tiffany & Co, punctuated with kitschy collections of carved coconut shell monkeys and bobble-headed hula girl dolls for car dashboards. She says her toddlers love the new Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center and Waikiki Beach Walk, where stores open onto coconut palm-ringed stages filled with hula performances, Hawaiian music and fountains.

Carved gourd dance
implement from Na
Mea HawaiiFrom Waikiki, Chun takes the round-the-island road which leads to the world’s largest open-air shopping centre, Ala Moana Center, where walkways are dotted with waterfalls, carp pools and swaying palms. Five floors offer more than 250 stores, restaurants and Chun’s ultimate shopping destination, the brand new Nordstrom store. The doors slide wide and Chun commands: “Follow me!” She makes tracks to the wild tattoo design art of Don Ed Hardy that covers walls, T-shirts, caps and hoodie jackets.

Precious Ni’ihau shell
necklace from Na Mea
HawaiiNext stop, shoes. “Can you imagine,” she says, while slipping on shiny red sandals with four-inch heels, “that this store has five shoe departments! The shoe boxes could reach five miles high if you stacked them.” Chun finds this shoe fetish funny given that flip-flops are standard island attire. As we pass the Nordstrom’s spa, Chun drops nuggets like: “The lingerie department carries 5,000 bras and the alterations department can make tucks in an hour if your flight is leaving.”

Back on the road, Chun continues down Ala Moana Boulevard, past Ward Centre and Ward Warehouse with their island fashions. Next sight, Aloha Tower Marketplace, where cruise liners dock for shopping, food and music. She rounds the corner and heads to the trendy shops and galleries of Chinatown, sandwiched between tiny wine bars, Vietnamese noodle shops and tattoo parlours.

Handcrafted handbags
from PlaceWaving her hand towards the Pali Highway that climbs up the lush mountains, she describes the funky shops of Kailua Town. “When I have a lazy day, I go there. I follow the coastline to our North Shore surfer town of Haleiwa to buy a new bikini.” A weekend drive back into town means a stop at what’s called the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet. “That means we swap our cash for their goods,” she says. T-shirts are usually 10 for US$20. But, she warns, “Buy big, they may shrink small.”

Nice, Different, Unusual

Handwoven lauhala hat
from Na Mea HawaiiAt Na Mea Hawaii, shelves are packed with treasures by island artists, including hand-carved Hawaiian fish hook necklaces and etched gourds used to tap out hula rhythms. Hand-woven lauhala leaf hats look great with multiple strands of Ni’ihau shells, hand-picked from the shores of Ni’ihau Island. Considered the gems of the ocean and priced in the thousands of dollars, they are the only shells insured by Lloyds of London. At the other end of the scale, Chun’s favourite buys are the kukui nut and coconut oils and soaps that feel so elegant and yet are so affordable. “These make you smell so yummy,” she says, squeezing the sample bottle.

Window reflections of
King Street, Chinatown,
at INTOVintage clothing is found at Catherine’s Closet in the quiet Manoa Valley, just outside Honolulu. Chun says she loves the lace tea party dresses, pearls, gloves, hats and retro glamour Hollywood starlet-style dresses that her aunties might have worn.

Top of Chun’s list for fun and funky is Affiliated Art’s hand-painted shoes and shirts, made to order in the Ward Warehouse shop of designs, by Tatua Howell-Reed. He’s the grandson of the great island designer, Mamo Howell. Chun adds: “Mamo’s shop of sophisticated aloha wear is next door.”

Art and artefacts crowd
the shelves of PlaceBut Chun’s very favourite shop might be Alan Carrell’s INTO, because it’s filled with the Matt & Nat bags she loves to tote, Buddha heads, fantasy lamps and stunning handmade jewellery. “Fits great, yeah?” she says as she tries on one of Alan’s own line of soft cotton retro fashions he calls “TURN”. His shop is in the heart of old downtown Honolulu, across from the performance art club, 39Hotel and Bar35 that Chun calls her “personal martini pubs”.

Venters’ shop is crowded with strange carved images, a vintage vase that might have belonged to your granny, and an old beaded shimmy dress with a tale to tell.

The Hip and Happening

Walls and hoodies at the new
Nordstrom store are decked
with the tattoo art of Don
Ed HardyOn a fast track to show us the hippest wares on Nu’uanu Street in Chinatown, Chun makes a grand entrance through the swinging gallery doors of “the other Peggy in Honolulu,” The Pegge Hopper Gallery. Walls are covered in glowing glass hearts by the gallery’s art shop/ artist neighbour, Roy Venters. In the upstairs gallery, Pegge’s elegant and ethereal paintings of island beauties gaze almost life-size from the canvas, telling stories of bygone days.

Next door, Venter’s own shop is filled floor to ceiling with stuff. “I love his vintage hula girl salt and pepper shakers,” says Chun with a hula-hip wiggle as she prowls the shelves, crowded with strange carved images, a vintage vase that might have belonged to your granny, and an old, beaded shimmy dress with a tale to tell.

Designer Mary Philpotts
is in her PlaceChun’s newest find is simply called Place. Honolulu’s renowned interior designer/artist, Mary Philpotts, gathered all her favourite things and put them in one place. The shop features arts, jewels, small furniture, tiny golden candles and outrageous handmade bags. Shoppers wondering how to use the irresistible objects will find the answers in the pages of Mary’s book, Hawaii – A Sense of Place. And with that, Chun gives us a wave and one last Kimi-grin, “Gotta go deliver art and unload my shopping bags.”

Find It:
Peggy Chun Gallery
3115 Alika Ave, Honolulu, tel: +1 (808) 595 8434
Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center
2201 Kalakakaua Ave, Suite A500, Waikiki, tel: +1 (808) 922 0588
Waikiki Beach Walk
Lewers Street, Waikiki (entire street)
Ala Moana Center
1450 Ala Moana Blvd, Honolulu, tel: +1 (808) 955 9517
Ward Center & Ward Warehouse
1200 Ala Moana Blvd, Honolulu, tel: +1 (808) 591 8411
Aloha Tower Marketplace
1 Aloha Tower Drv, Honolulu, Tel: +1 (808) 528 5700
Aloha Stadium Swap Meet
Aloha Stadium, 99-500 Salt Lake Blvd, tel: +1 (808) 486 6704
Na Mea Hawaii
1050 Ala Moana Blvd, Suite #1000 Ward Warehouse, Honolulu,
tel: +1 (808) 596 8885
Catherine’s Closet
2733 E. Manoa Road at Keama St, Manoa Valley, tel: +1 (808) 386 2746
Affiliated Art
1200 Ala Moana Blvd, Ward Center, Honolulu, tel: +1 (808) 591-9278
INTO
40 N. Hotel St, Honolulu, tel: +1 (808) 536 2211
Pegge Hopper Gallery & Roy Venters Gallery
1164 Nu’uanu Ave, Chinatown, tel: +1 (808) 524 1160
Place
40 S. School St, Honolulu, tel: +1 (808) 275 3075