Valerie Joseph: Party with a purpose

Kristina Lum wears a romantic off-the-shoulder creation from Kristen Domingcil’s “Watercolor Tea Party” collection.

A local fashion designer guides hard-working interns in putting on a benefit fashion show

By Nadine Kam
Honolulu Star-Advertiser
Style Editor

The world of fashion is fun, beautiful, glamorous, sexy.

Not always.

Sure it can be, but that’s just the surface. The rest, like the notion of an all-powerful Oz in “The Wizard of Oz,” is just an illusion.

Behind the curtain you’ll find a lot of hard work, sweat, stress and heavy lifting. That’s the part Valerie Ragaza-Miao, owner of the Valerie Joseph boutique, wanted to show starry-eyed interns when she started her PINC (Partners Inspiring Nouvelle Concepts) program.

Valerie Ragaza-Miao wears a caterpillar-inspired creation by Rachel Pavlis, that will open the designer’s “Metamorphosis” collection, to be shown Aug. 29 at Rumours nightclub. PINC PREMIERE PARTY With Fresh Fashion Show preview: » Place: Paparazzi, Ward Centre » When: 9 p.m. to midnight Saturday » Admission: Free before 11 p.m., reserve at www.ValerieJoseph.com; donate school supplies for Community Helping Schools for a chance to win a grand prize » Call: 942-5258 FRESH FASHION EVENT Third annual benefit for Community Helping Schools with fashions by Valerie Joseph, Rachel Pavlis, Jennifer Fukino and Kristen Domingcil: » Place: Rumours, Ala Moana Hotel » When: 4 to 8 p.m. Aug. 29 » Tickets: $20, includes pupu buffet, available at Valerie Joseph, Ala Moana Center, or http://www.valeriejoseph.com » Call: 942-5258

Even though I should know better, when I meet up with Ragaza-Miao to talk about her PINC launch party Saturday at Paparazzi, I mentioned, “You don’t look stressed at all.”

“Well, it always looks very pretty. That’s what we work at behind the scenes so the audience can have a seamless experience,” she said. “Students enter an internship thinking, ‘Oh, it’s really cool. I can work with Valerie.’ But what they learn is it’s a lot of work that’s not very pretty.”

The PINC team was formed to assist her in producing a benefit fashion show. The students were selected in spring and started working on the project in May. Along the way, one dropped out, leaving only two to carry on, putting in 200 hours toward earning four credits at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

What it amounts to is a boot camp for budding community-minded entrepreneurs, event coordinators, fundraisers and public relations professionals in the guise of a fashion internship. All the skills are necessary components of making a business work today.

During weekly meetings, Ragaza-Miao invites professionals, such as Joni Redick-Yundt, author of “Million-Dollar Attitude,” to speak to the students about their paths toward success. The students are also coached in public speaking and writing press releases.

“What they’ve realized are the skills that are needed to produce a charitable event,” Ragaza-Miao said. “They’ve never solicited for donations before. They’ve never done cold calling. Everything is new to them. It’s pushed them to develop skills they never had before.”

In classrooms, students deal with theoretical concepts, not the realities of who’s going to provide labor, contribute gifts and prizes or fund their fantasies.

“In the beginning they had all these ideas, so I would have to step in and ask, ‘Who’s going to pay for all this?’ The reality of working for a nonprofit is there is no money,” Ragaza-Miao said. “They also wanted to charge $500 for a ticket. Now it’s $20. They had to learn to be realistic and pay attention to what’s going on in the community, in the economy.”

After researching various charities, the students elected to donate funds raised from the Fresh Fashion Event on Aug. 29 to Community Helping Schools. Tickets are on sale at the Valerie Joseph boutique.

During the PINC Premiere Party on Saturday, leading up to the Fresh Fashion Show benefit, there will be free Nail Candy embellishments by Salon Cookie Couture and body art by Dr. Wiz, raffles and free PINC gifts while supplies last. Attendees are invited to bring in school supplies for Community Helping Schools for a shot at a grand prize.

Then, if all goes well on the 29th, the organization founded by Kathie Wells will get a cash infusion toward its aim of matching community donors with classroom needs, such as computers, file cabinets and other necessities. And the audiences will be treated to an eyeful of fabulousness via a fashion show of Valerie Joseph designs, as well as the work of three young designers: Rachel Pavlis, Jennifer Fukino and Kristen Domingcil. Also showcased will be the work of Nolan Robert, celebrity makeup artist and Lifetime’s “Blush” reality makeup show winner, who hails from Hawaii.

PAVLIS’ interest in fashion developed when she started working in the Valerie Joseph boutique during high school. Prior to that the ‘Iolani School graduate envisioned a career in nursing.

Her “Metamorphosis” show will be an autobiographical depiction of her journey and coming out as a designer. “I was always interested in fashion, and working in the store steered me in that direction,” she said.

Now attending school in Portland, Ore., she still comes home summers to work at the boutique. Heading into her senior year at Oregon State University, Pavlis said she finally feels ready to work on a complete collection, and since coming home has been hard at work creating pieces seven pieces for the Fresh Fashion Show.

Rachel Pavlis

Exposure to Pacific Northwest style has provided some influence in terms of eco-thinking and winterwear.

“I found out I love winterwear and layering, and it’s something I want to do more of. Here it was like, ‘Why do I need a coat?’ I’m also more attune to seasonal trends, while in Hawaii everyone dresses the same all year.”

She’ll be showing a range of separates, dresses, coat and gowns made with rich silk chiffons, silk charmeuse, couture beaded lace, Italian wool boucle and metallic brocade.

Courtesy Jennifee Fukino
Sketches from designer Jennifer Fukino’s “Noctiluca” collection, to be presented Aug. 29 as part of the Fresh Fashion Event at Rumours nightclub.

Also in the show is Kristen Domingcil, who will be a senior at UH-Manoa this fall. She’ll be showing her “Watercolor Tea Party” collection of feminine printed, ruffled tea dresses, plus hats and her handcrafted accessories.

Compared with her contemporaries, Domingcil considers herself a romantic whose design sensibilities veer toward ruffles and old-fashioned femininity.

“I consider myself offbeat. My idea of fun is drinking tea and reading,” she said.

The ideas for her collection came to her while en route back home from studying abroad in London, where a class in architecture increased her comfort level in
working with space and proportion. She also found         Kristen Domingcil inspiration in the streets, where both young and old

displayed their sense of style.

“I always felt so underdressed there,” Domingcil said. “The American mentality is to wear whatever’s comfortable. For the British it seems to be wear whatever you want, but make it interesting. There’s always something off about what they wear, but in a good way. Like, I was on the Tube (subway) and there was an older woman dressed head to toe in different shades of red.

“It seemed like every time I saw someone, I would be thinking, ‘Wow, where did she get that piece?'”

The only overlap, she said, was in the abundance of leggings and skinny jeans. “But even the jeans were interesting. There was always some detail to them, or they were paired with a nice belt.”

In spite of all the extra work involved in staging a charitable event, Ragaza-Miao has plans to introduce a similar internship program at the high school level someday.

“It’s an important fork in life, when kids have to start thinking about their next steps. I see how people spend so much time and money in college and end up working in completely different fields because they didn’t find their passion or heart. I think if you truly do what you love, you won’t fail.”

She said she was lucky enough to know at a young age that she wanted to work in fashion. In grade school she’d stay up late — not doing homework, but sewing new outfits for classes the next day.

“I couldn’t wear anything from a store or anything anyone else would have,” she said. “A lot of young people are afraid to be unique, but I always felt a need to be different.”

Her immediate goal is to present two Fresh fundraising fashion events a year, although she said her husband, Joseph, worries that she’s working too hard.

“Maybe it’s because I don’t have children,” she said. “I believe you can parent in any capacity.”

Project Runway contenders: Ivy Higa and Andy South

Lifetime photo
Andy South fits his manikin on “Project Runway.”

Hawaii designers will sew the whirlwind in a new season of “Project Runway”

By Nadine Kam
Honolulu Star-Advertiser
Style editor

An ensemble from Ivy Higa's Fall/Winter 2010 collection, presented in February during New York Fashion Week.

What a difference a few months have made for two Hawaii designers appearing in Season 8 of “Project Runway,” which debuts tonight on Lifetime.

Andy South and Ivy Higa will compete against 14 other designers for a spot in a New York Fashion Week show on Sept. 9, but when last I saw them, the design competition was a distant dream. Now both have completed the preliminaries leading up to the runway showdown and viewers will just have to tune in to see who makes it to the finals.

Rivalries are a given on the show, but don’t expect these two to be duking it out. They had the same word for each other — “sweetheart” — and together they might give the rest of the nation a big slice of local flava.

“She’s such a local girl, and when we talked some of our pidgin came out,” South said.

“When that happened, everyone around us was like, ‘What the hell are they talking about?'” Higa said.

Although Higa, who now resides in New York, has debuted collections in Spring/Summer 2010 and Fall/Winter 2010 gallery presentations during New York Fashion Week, a spot in the finale would mark her first time in the premier venue, which moves from Bryant Park to Lincoln Center this fall.

In late March, before she was tapped for the show, Higa was back home in Honolulu and the Big Island for some R&R. We met for lunch with Lynne O’Neill, a fashion show producer at New York Fashion Week, and briefly talked about the merits of “Project Runway.” Higa had auditioned twice for earlier seasons, and I left our lunch thinking she had written off trying to make the show a third time.

Meanwhile, early in May, South was preparing his second audition package and had the opportunity to quiz Season 7 finalist Jay Sario about his experience on the design competition. Like South, Sario had been a student in Honolulu Community College’s fashion technology program, and was back in town for, among other appearances, a homecoming party in his honor.

“He reaffirmed everything I believed I should do, telling me to stay true to yourself, what you like and what you believe in,” South said, now that major filming has wrapped and finalists are working on

their collections. (With a publicist for the Lifetime series listening in, he couldn’t say just which finalists are headed to the final showdown.)

South had earlier auditioned for Season 5 of “Project Runway” and absorbed the criticism at that time to take a step back and look at his work objectively, after the show’s fashion guru, Tim Gunn, told him, “I’m not sure who you are as a designer.”

“I showed so many different things and thought I was ready. But in hindsight I didn’t realize I didn’t have a (fashion) voice,” South said.

His dilemma was one that many young designers face, the battle between following their heart or serving a market that doesn’t necessarily move fashion forward or satisfy the soul, but pays the bills.

In South’s case an initial love of evening gowns led to demand for his work in the beauty pageant world, which meant playing to a showy, middle-of-the-road standard of dress that has little appeal on 7th Avenue.

“It was a compromise,” he said. When working for a particular client, “nothing is ever completely your own. I was so caught up with the pageant world that I neglected my own collection, my own career.”

Nadine Kam photos
Two looks of Andy South: On the left are gowns sent down the runway during his Honolulu Community College senior fashion show in 2007. At right, he was named the winner of a local design competition judged by “Project Runway” Season 5 finalist Blayne Walsh in 2008, for a darker, edgier ensemble.

He showed his aesthetic during a local design competition in 2008, when more than a half-dozen local designers were scrutinized by Season 5 “Project Runway” finalist Blayne Walsh. South won for a coat ensemble that showed the darker, edgier side to his work, which he has continued to develop.

“Right before auditioning, I made the decision to exit the pageant world and work on my fall (2009) collection.”

South’s audition was in Seattle, and the call to New York came quickly.

“A whirlwind is the best way to put it. The auditioning process seems like a long time ago. The whole process was beyond my expectation, and it was a lot harder than I expected because of the stress you’re under.”

After so many years of watching the competition, you’d think designers would know the routine and rigors of the show. South said he did his best to brush up on menswear patterns, just in case, and mentally practiced by walking into stores and musing, “What if I have to get everything from here?”

But he said, “It’s so easy to sit at home and watch, with your popcorn and your feet kicked up, and think, ‘It’s so easy. I can do it,’ but to be in the situation is very different. It takes its toll mentally and emotionally, but it also made me work harder because I didn’t want to go home.”

All the while, he said, he kept his ears open to criticism not only of his own work, but the other designers, to learn from their mistakes as well.

No doubt the viewing audience will be seeing some tears in the process.

“I’m a sensitive Hawaii boy,” he said. “It was like an emotional roller coaster for me, but that’s the beauty of it. Sometimes a really difficult challenge was what I needed to fail at in order to grow, learn and come back stronger.
“The main thing was having fun with every challenge, good or bad.”

Lifetime photo
Ivy Higa works in her sketchbook in the Parsons workroom on “Project Runway.”

I COULDN’T imagine much fazing Ivy Higa, whose sweet, demure appearance belies her fierceness and tenacity. As a veteran of two New York Fashion Week collections and her own growing Ivy h. brand, she’s accustomed to real-world sleeplessness and deadlines associated with the business, but even she was not without her meltdown moments.

“The schedule was totally what I’m used to,” she said from her home in New York. “I’m used to sketching things quickly, coming off the spring shows and going directly into fall planning. I’m very decisive. I have to commit to designs quickly because there’s no time to go back and edit. It’s do or die.

“The only difference (on the show) is you’re being continually criticized. But (judge) Michael Kors said, ‘You can’t just surround yourself with people who tell you you’re fabulous all the time.’ You have to make sure that you take what will help you grow and filter out what’s negative, and it’ll make you a better designer, a better person.”

While male designers tend to create for a fantasy or idealized woman, Higa creates garments for the 24/7 lifestyle of contemporary women, with designs that are modern, chic, functional and detailed.

Higa is a University of Hawaii art graduate who worked in the menswear department at Neiman Marcus prior to moving to New York. Exposed to fashion every day, she got the idea that she could be a designer, and decided to enroll at Parsons The New School for Design, home base for “Project Runway.”

Earlier this year she was one of nine designers nationwide chosen to compete in the Oscars Design Challenge 2010 to have her original gown worn by one of the onstage presenters during the Academy Awards ceremony. She had taken her brand to the brink of a mainstream breakthrough, with neither money nor connections, just hard work and talent. A little seed money would come in handy at this point in her career.

“The economy really hurt everyone, especially new designers,” she said, explaining that retail buyers have been less willing to take a chance on unknown entities.

“I was very melancholy about auditioning again, because it would be my third time, but it was the opportunity of a lifetime.”

After our lunch in March, she flew out the same afternoon. “As soon as I got back, there was an e-mail alert about auditioning for the show. We’d been talking about signs and it was totally like that. It was very serendipitous, so I took it as a sign I was supposed to audition,” she said.

“The last two times, I’d made it pretty far. This time, I went in not expecting anything. I left it up to the universe.”

As for whether she will make Hawaii proud, she says: “I hope so. I love my style. I love the things I designed. I was very true to who I am. I didn’t play a role or character. I hope I’m not going to be eating my words in a couple weeks.

“I feel grateful. It was hard, but as Bruce Lee said, you need to ‘be like water.’ Water adapts to the glass that holds it. When adapting, you can never be too prepared for anything, especially ‘Project Runway.’ It was definitely the best and worst experience of my life.”

Ivy Higa: Can’t stop the muse

Courtesy Ivy h.
Ivy Higa’s wearable, stylish creations were an instant hit with her friends, and led her to develop her Ivy h. line. Shown are looks from her Spring/Summer 2010 collection.

A UH grad who traded sculpting clay for sculpting silhouettes, rolls out her new collection

By Nadine Kam
Features/Style Editor
Honolulu Star-Bulletin

Ivy Higa never gave it a second thought. She explored the world of ceramics at the University of Hawaii at Manoa just because it was something she wanted to do. But, upon graduating with her art degree, she promptly turned her attention toward making a living. To her surprise, that didn’t include clay.

Instead, Higa found herself in the men’s department at Neiman Marcus where proximity to fine clothing reawakened designer fantasies dormant since her teens.

“I’d been sewing and designing since I was 13. It was just something I did as a hobby, but after three years of working at Neiman, I thought, ‘I could do this.’

“I loved everything about fashion there, the construction, the quality, but I had some of my own ideas,” she said by phone from Manhattan, where she is putting the finishing touches on her Fall/Winter 2010 collection, set to debut Feb. 13 during New York Fashion Week, in an informal presentation at the New Art Center.

“During fashion week, there are about 13 shows a day, so this way people can come in, have a cocktail and leave in 5 minutes if they want to,” she said.

Not that they’d want to. Designing now for her own label, Ivy h., Higa’s designs reflect a well-constructed, effortless and modern chic that anyone versed in fashion will find worth studying in detail. Since her first presentation last September, she’s held audiences with editors from Vogue, InStyle, Elle and other publications; she’s produced looks for Eva Longoria-Parker and Oprah Winfrey; and a day after our phone interview last week, she was scheduled to meet with Vogue’s market editor for Fall/Winter 2010 editorial consideration.

Not bad for her first year-and-a-half solo effort.

Higa arrived in New York out of a desire to enroll at Parsons The New School for Design, perhaps best known these days as home base for the TV fashion design competition, “Project Runway.”

She was actually in the running to be one of the contestants on the series, but didn’t make the last cut before the series hit the air in what she believes is the season that launched Christian Siriano’s career.

“I just looked at what happened as a sign that it wasn’t meant to be, but I kept going. It helped fuel my passion even more,” she said.

Her studies at Parsons led to work in the design department at Donna Karan, before moving on to Lafeyette 148. She also was designing clothing for herself and friends, and her designs became so popular that in fall 2008 she decided to go public with her own brand. Never mind that her timing happened to coincide with one of the biggest economic busts in decades, one that hit the fashion industry particularly hard because of the discretionary nature of such purchases.

Higa staged her first New York Fashion Week presentation last fall, with her Spring/Summer 2010 collection hitting boutiques on both coasts and the South now, just as she’s about to present her Fall/Winter 2010 collection.

Just as with her pursuit of an art degree, fashion is just something she needs to do, and she can’t be deterred, no matter how rough the road.

“Nobody in fashion likes to be in the real world, although I think I’m very realistic in that my eyes were wide open going into this. I know what’s out there.”

Students team up on eclectic show

FL MORRIS Photo
Honolulu Community College fashion student Ron Kayano will be among the young designers showing their creations Sunday at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. Terra Wight wears his punk ensemble.

By Nadine Kam
Honolulu Star-Bulletin
Features/Style editor

Student fashion shows can be among the most entertaining due to the diversity and eccentricity of youth, unsullied by commercial interests. This year’s showing by the students of Honolulu Community College is no exception.

“An International Affair” is the theme of the luncheon show beginning at 11:30 a.m. Sunday at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Hotel Coral Ballroom.

On view will be more than 120 original creations ranging from aloha to street to evening wear, along with lines dubbed “China Doll,” “Diamonds in the Sand,” “VIP,” etc., created by graduating seniors to express their creativity and interests.

For many of the students, the garments reflect their own lifestyles. Senior Tavia Perallon came up with a line of ruffled Latin-flavored dresses and separates to reflect her love for dancing salsa. Her pieces range from theatrical apparel, with pants slit and embellished with ruffles, to skirts with a tamer set of streamers that would be appropriate for a dinner party.

FL MORRIS photo
Marybeth Jenkins, from left, Kate Brown and Tavia Perallon model designs “with a twist,” by Suzie Vogler.

Jay Sario came up with a streetwise collection of deconstructed frocks, tops and gladiator-style pleated mini skirts “for girls who are confidant, who don’t worry about what people say.

“That’s how I dress — very eclectic,” said the senior, who will be leaving after graduation for San Francisco, where people are more likely to dress up than in Honolulu.

Kaliko Fukumoto might fit Sario’s description of the confidant girl, if she weren’t already designing her own playful, polka-dotted line.

“I like funky, happy things. I like clothes that emphasize the boobies and really short skirts. I like extremes, either really short or really long, never medium because I don’t want to be like everybody else.”

Ideal clients for the petite pixie’s corseted tops and ballerina skirts would be extroverts and such Amazon women as Pamela Anderson and Carmen Electra. Fukumoto counts designer Betsy Johnson, known for her exuberant designs, among her role models.

“My mom calls me her rebellious child. I wear things that regular people wouldn’t think of matching,” Fukumoto said. “My dad always looks at my clothes and says, ‘What were you thinking?’ ”

As usual, there are garments to suit a variety of figures and Sina Samuela addresses plus-size princesses with her Ghetto Phat line for sizes 18 to 24.

At size 22 to 24, Samuela said that like everyone else, she started designing for the smaller woman, but never felt enthusiastic about the sizing.

Noting that clothing options for women her size were limited, she put her heart into developed a line of career and evening dresses to show larger women there is life beyond peasant tops and T-shirts.

Not all follow a straight path to the designing life. Ron Kayano has sold Amway and worked as a tailor and plumber to pay his way through school.

While selling Amway, he was required to wear a suit at sales rallies, that Kayano thought of sewing his own suit. That never worked out, but through classes at Kuni Dry Goods, the Fashion Center Sewing School and designer Linda Iki, he found the process fun and challenging. He spent a couple of summers taking classes at Parsons School of Design in New York.

“I always exceled in art classes but with fashion my medium is a living canvas rather than a painting on a wall. I like to feel the enjoyment of the person wearing my garments.”

Kayano’s Black Swan line features theatrical, punk-rock inspired garments. Although he prefers creating dresses and gowns to men’s suits, he may go back to trying to finish that suit, the project that got him started in fashion. “I know how to do it now,” he said. “I just haven’t had time to get to it.”

‘An International Affair’
Where: Hilton Hawaiian Village Coral Ballroom
When: From 11:30 a.m. Aug. 1, 2004
Tickets: $28, or $10 general and $5 students for standing room
Call: 845-9203