Kealopiko centers its design ethos around ʻAīna, intention, and care.
Images by Lila Lee
On Moloka‘i, where clothing label Kealopiko’s manufacturing facility is located, fashion exists on the same plane as education, community, and outreach. For many Hawai‘i residents, the ordinary act of donning an outfit can harness and reflect the beliefs one holds dear into a workaday context — a contemporary ritual of choosing what to wear that Kealopiko approaches with creativity, deliberateness, and care. Always considering the importance of moʻolelo and the generationally-held ‘ike of Hawaiian kūpuna, the brand’s place-based principles emanate from its headquarters in the small town of Kaunakakai, on a rural island composed largely of Hawaiian homesteads. What is reflected, then, in Kealopiko’s designs are the people and the stories that have been passed down, the eco-conscious framework of using only what is needed, and a tradition of sharing everything from food to conversation.
Founders Ane Bakutis, Hina Kneubuhl, and Jamie Makasobe, combined with their close-knit team of workers, make the magic that is Kealopiko. Emerging from their varied and distinct corners of artistic practices and academic backgrounds, Kealopiko is more than just clothing as consumer goods, but a vehicle to come together, collaborate, and share ideas.
Bakutis is a designer at Kealopiko with a background in botany, particularly native plants and ecological restoration. Her work lies in the cyclical tending and development of Hawaiian environmental recovery and protection. Designing graphic patterns with Makasobe and Kneubuhl, the trio’s work merges their deep respect and servitude to the ‘āina, transforming nature’s everyday gifts into their prints. The kapa maker Kneubuhl is an ‘ōlelo Hawaiʻi expert, committing her life to the revitalization of the Hawaiian language where she spends the majority of her time within the archive of nūpepa, the Hawaiian language newspapers. An ocean person, Makasobe formerly worked with the fishponds at He‘eia on O‘ahu, during the early days of Paepae o He‘eia’s development, as an area caretaker and farmer of moi, a Pacific threadfin. Makasobe also collects, documents, and translates the stories of these kūpuna. “Kealopiko, that moi icon, is the most delicious part of the fish,” Makasobe said, referencing the name of their brand, which draws inspiration from the connection kūpuna have to the sea, their love of food, and the finer things in life.
Walking into the Kealopiko workshop for a studio visit this past summer, it became apparent to me that every day is different. My eye gravitated to the myriads of colorways, overlapping screen print transfers, carvings, fabrics, colors, and inks, all illuminated by the open and sunny windows that bathed the entire house in light. Different screen printing techniques inspired from across Moananuiākea are practiced and the workers are encouraged to bring in their design ideas and methodologies inspired by the seasons. For example, based on the placement of a plywood woodblock above or below a textile can qualify a design as a Tahitian or Cook Islands technique; there are also many different possibilities for color, most of which are chosen in relation to the time of year with Lono, Kū, and other appropriate guides.
Kealopiko’s medium of choice is screenprinting, an extension of the brand’s storytelling ethos. Video by Lila Lee.
For Kawaila Purdy and Coral Mariano, two Moloka‘i women who work at Kealopiko, the job itself is a continuous learning experience. “There is always something to learn,” said Mariano, who handles printing, dying, and cutting at the facility. “When we were operating out of their hale before, they taught everyone and we learned so much. I have been working for three years in this factory. Eight years ago, I first learned how to dye. You are up close and personal.” Mariano brought her daughter into the room from her nap and everyone took a break to eat homemade jerky, chicken long rice, and patties for sandwiches, prepared and brought over from their house down the road by Bakutis’s husband.
“It’s all about setting the space,” Makasobe explained to me later by phone. “How you set the table and how you welcome those to come into what you want them to engage with.” When Kealopiko celebrated its first anniversary, the founders essentially threw a baby party: a huge lūʻau with hundreds of people, live bands, and food for friends and families. “If you just wanted to cruise and have good Hawaiian food and listen to good music, the was happening. That’s just a Hawai‘i practice, right? If you going invite somebody over, you going feed them.”
Many different choices are considered before the making of a Kealopiko product, tried and tried again in various ways to create diverse and distinctive designs.
Many different choices are considered before a final Kealopiko product, tried and tried again in various ways to create diverse and distinctive designs. By using and utilizing the studio, anyone becomes a part of Kealopiko’s bigger, expanding customizable world where your mark is historical amongst the many that have passed through the studio. There are numerous possibilities and they are all available with the ability to jump right in at whichever point in the process. The creative method of printmaking is an extension of people and storytelling in practice, an active conversation with space to test and modify. Each material down to the dye is sustainable and eco-friendly so that runoff can water the banana trees when it gets washed outside. “We will use these as stuffings for pillows!” Bakutis said, picking up a bag of scraps.
The genealogy is on the tag. Talking story with Hina, each design is pulled from nūpepa ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, the Hawaiian language newspapers, “what Puakea Nogelmeier calls “the Hawaiian language repository,” Kneubuhl said. Kneubuhl explained the philosophy behind their approach, saying, “Generally, we meet and share ideas, and see what’s resonating for us where we’re at. What are the issues of our time that we want to talk about? How may something like moʻolelo help us highlight different issues that are in our community or that we feel strongly about?”
From there, certain native plants, people, symbols, and animals are chosen and then researched through the Hawaiian newspapers. This year, Kealopiko will be highlighting one particular epic of Ha’inakolo which chronicles the adventurous voyages of an ali’i woman between her birthplace of Waipio to and from Kuaihelani or what Hina called the “cloud islands.” After experiencing heartbreak and betrayal, she returns to Waipio with her son, and finds herself in the throes of mental illness. She then finds hula and healing through hula, becoming a major presence within hula.
If we say that we’re a Hawaiian fashion brand, then what does that mean? I think those are questions for people to ponder when they’re thinking about this as a path that they might take.
Hina Knueubuhl
“The nūpepa is a massive repository of knowledge that our kūpuna intentionally left for us. The newspaper allows us to dive deep into what our kūpuna thought and how they looked at the world. That’s the kind of stuff we are trying to draw out when we think about our design.” Nearly one-hundred different newspaper titles were serially published from 1834 to 1948, amounting to over 125,000 densely printed pages (Nogelmeier, 2010). “They are an invaluable repository of cultural, historical, and contemporary knowledge as well as a space for engaged discourse created predominantly for and by the Hawaiian people. 76,000 pages were digitzed in the initial effort, with 30,000 of those currently word searchable.”
As this grounding philosophy guides their work together, the everyday experience of being Hawaiian in Hawai‘i is the label’s biggest and deepest inspiration. “For those who are interested in getting into Hawaiian fashion, I would encourage them to choose to make choices in their production that reflect their values. That means making choices that put people first and ʻāina first,” Hina Knueubuhl said, cognizant of how one’s decisions affects future generations. “If we say that we’re a Hawaiian fashion brand, then what does that mean? I think those are questions for people to ponder when they’re thinking about this as a path that they might take.”