CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM HCC student designer Genevieve Lehano is ready for summer in a swimsuit she created to show the one-piece can be fun. With the swimwear class offered for the first time, the students wanted to make a splash.

2 Honolulu Community College
students use life experiences to craft
fashions for the school's Sunday show

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By Nadine Kam
nkam@starbulletin.com

Economic uncertainty suggested restraint during the planning of the Honolulu Community College Fashion Show, so rather than counting on filling the usual 800 seats, they made room for only 250.

The students needn't have worried. Fashion conquers all, it seems, as hundreds of posters and flyers publicizing the show never got to fulfill their destiny stapled to bulletin boards and telephone poles. Instead, they've been lying on a desk in the fashion department offices since tickets to "Nuestro Ritmo (Our Rhythm)," set for Sunday afternoon at the Pacific Beach Hotel, sold out immediately to faculty, students' friends and family.

CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM Junior Natasha McKenzie wears a bead-fringed swimsuit she designed.

The restraint in seating arrangements didn't carry over to the designs. The draw of student shows -- as those who witnessed the University of Hawaii's "Clothes Minded" show last weekend might agree -- is the diversity of idealized and youthful visions. Those views are exaggerated at HCC, where nontraditional students are a norm.

At opposite ends of the spectrum are Samshad Prasad, who worked as a seamstress in Fiji before moving to Hawaii and pursuing her degree, and Genevieve Lehano, who arrived at the school fresh out of Mililani High.

Prasad graduated in 1977 and married in 1980, right after completing secretarial school. Having giving birth to three children a year apart, it made sense to work at home, so she turned to her old love of sewing.

Living near the Nodi International Airport in Fiji, there was high demand for tourism industry uniforms and clothing for tourists, so that's what she made, studying design from the Lady Diana magazines that arrived at her home monthly.

CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM From left, Tiffany Peters, Jessica Jech and Rayleen Carangil wear designs by Samshad Prasad, right, cut from a single wedding sari. The exception is the pink skirt. Prasad went from store to store to find the matching-colored fabric, sewing on bits of the sari's gold trim to create a unified look.

Once she started classes at HCC, she learned "the American way is very different from Fiji," she said, where everyone is self-taught and uses methods unique to them. Looking back, she feels she might have inadvertently shortchanged her customers back then.

"That's what I am thinking now," she said. "Not that I did a bad job -- nothing's going to fall apart -- but I wasn't doing all the basics, like I didn't do finishing. This was a great thing I learned."

Inspired by the glamour of Indian films, Shad, who is of "Indo-Indian" heritage, created garments inspired by Indian design, including a collection of three dressy ensembles cut from a single wedding sari in vibrant pink and gold.

It took a week of studying the sari and two days of sketching before she deigned to make her first cut, knowing that a misplaced border or print would ruin her plans. "At first I didn't like cutting pieces of the sari, but I was happy with the way it turned out," she said.

Though she grew up wearing saris, she realized they are impractical and foreign to many. "I myself don't like to be wrapped in sari," she said. "It's too much clothes on your body, but this way, anyone can wear it."

It's an oversight that in a place where so many grow up wearing bikinis and swim trunks, the university system fashion programs have not offered a class in swimsuit design until this semester, and Genevieve Lehano dove right in to the point where swimsuits are just about the only garments she's showing.

CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM Andrew Balmores, left, and Stanley Ma wear practical, cargo-style swim trunks designed by Erwin Castro.

"I had a lot of fun making them, and also, being here in Hawaii, I surf a lot, and two pieces, they fall off, so I've made one-piece swimsuits.

"A lot of people look at one-piece swimsuits as being for old ladies because they're in plain colors and plain designs, but I don't think it has to be that way. I think they can be young and cute. There's so much you can do by adding little things here and there."

Those little things included swapping the usual Lycra for a plush stretch animal print fabric, incorporating appliqués of crushed velvet, using cut-outs and paint, and adding ties and other details to pieces.

Lehano, who's sewn most of her clothes since she was about 11, believes in a perfect fit all around and dreams of developing a line embracing underpinnings as well as outerwear. She goes as far as to say she'd like to run a shop in which her garments will be one-of-a-kind.

"If you find a dress in your size, that's it. No one else will ever have it, because I hate to worry about going out and having the same thing as anyone else. It hasn't ever happened to me, but it's not right. That's just the way I see it."

ALSO FEATURED in the show will be a romantic collection by Wanda Broadwater, playful designs by Sue Hong and Nichole Sachiko Oshiro, tailored garments by Wendy Kawano and edgy, architectural ensembles by Erwin Castro. There will also be a presentation of flamenco-inspired designs that give the show its name. For more information, call 845-9203.

CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM Nichole Oshiro, left, and Sue Hong model their own summery creations.

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