By Ken Ige, Star-BulletinPamela Seeney, above left, and Kim Kono design easy-care,
loose-fitting clothes for working women.
Darn reality,
sew the dream
Owners of a unique clothing store,
By June Watanabe
open only four days a month,
toil the uniform market daily
to keep their dream alive
Star-Bulletin"PEOPLE ask, 'What kind of store is this?'" admits Kim Kono, laughing. Some get downright irritated when they can't get in.
Well, really, what kind of store is it that's open only two weekends a month -- usually 3 to 7 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. to noon Saturday -- and still manages to survive in a trying economy?
"Somebody told me they had great clothes," Rosemary Zais said about Design Group's handmade, comfortable linen wear, explaining part of the Manoa store's success.
"I came down twice and you weren't open," she said to Kono and her partner, Pamela Seeney. Zais finally made it one Saturday, eagerly scanning the racks.
"Are you listed in the phone book?" Eleanor Nishimura wanted to know as she tried on one outfit after another. When her friends mentioned they were going to buy linen at the store, "I thought they were going to buy sheets."
By Ken Ige, Star-BulletinSigns, above, showcase their store's very limited hours.
(The store is listed under Design Group. Some people think "Linen Wear" is the store's name, but it merely describes what's for sale.)When the store is closed, as it is most of the time, you need only peek inside the front door to glean the answer to the other question often asked of Kono and Seeney: "Why aren't you open more often?"
When the shop at 2733 E. Manoa Road is not in its retail mode, it's a tiny garment factory, with a 6-by-24-foot table dominating the middle of the room, paper patterns hanging on racks, bolts of fabric stashed on shelves in the back.
The foundation of the business is custom-made uniforms, mainly for hotel workers.
But don't expect to see racks of uniforms lining the walls. "Everything is made to order," including colors and designs, Kono said. "We don't stock anything."
They also don't require a minimum order. The Hilton Hawaiian Village may hire a new employee and just require three outfits, for example. Another time, they may re-outfit an entire department.
Seeney and Kono contract out the printing of the fabric and the bulk sewing. Then, "we finish it off" and deliver, Seeney said.
Unlike the uniforms, however, the clothing -- mostly linen wear, but denim and cottons as well -- is done completely in-house, from styling to sewing. "We cut it, wash it, test it for shrinkage," said Kono, who also designs jewelry to accessorize the outfits.
Retail sales account for only 10 to 15 percent of business, but it's the fun part, where Seeney and Kono get to let their creative talents fly.
By Ken Ige, Star-BulletinPamela Seeney, left, Kim Kono and Bernard Moore
examine a bolt of fabric in their Manoa garment factory.
For two weekends a month, the factory
becomes a retail outlet.
"It's an outlet of sorts," Seeney said, trying to explain the store. "But when you say 'outlet,' you think factory outlet and seconds. What we make is not cheap and it's not seconds, but we make everything here and we sell it here, so it is a factory outlet."The factory/office/shop is in what was once the Manoa Art Gallery and Cypress boutique, at the beginning of Manoa Valley's short commercial corridor. Neighbors include a dry cleaner, antique gallery, barber and beauty shops; down the street is Toyo's Superette.
Seeney and Kono are two-thirds of their work force. Seeney is president, Kono, vice president, and they're both designers, seamstresses, marketers, sales clerks, delivery people, secretaries, clean-up crew -- you name it.
Their only employee is Bernard Moore, who was busy laying out patterns and cutting material for uniforms on a recent day. Twenty-four hours later, the clutter would be gone, the "factory" transformed into a showroom for the next two-day sale. The "office" was a dressing room and shoji screens strategically hid the work area. The massive table, however, always stays put.
Seeney, 46, (a 1966 Kaimuki High graduate) was a fashion major at the University of Hawaii and Kono, 42 (Kalani High, 1973), a UH art major. They had worked in various jobs in the fashion industry when they met in 1985, at a garment company they'd rather not name. "Kim ran the factory and I handled sales and design," Seeney said.
With a then-third partner, they ended up buying the company in 1989, renaming it Image Design Group.
"Making uniforms is very lucrative," Seeney said, when asked how a fashion designer ended up owning a uniform company.
In 1989, when they were based in Kakaako, they counted most of the major hotels in the state as clients, had a total of nine employees and $1 million a year in sales.
"Then the gulf war happened," Seeney said. In a state that relies so much on tourism, the effect of the 1991 war on the economy is still being felt. Hotels pulled back.
"Our business slowly declined and we had to cut back in 1993," Kono said. Their lease ended in Kakaako and they moved to smaller quarters in the airport area.
Still, because of uniforms, Design Group racks up nearly half a million dollars a year in sales. Seeney attributes that in large part to offering clients the same quality of design and service that they offered when they had a bigger company, and at prices that haven't risen with inflation.
But while uniforms provided a financial foundation, they didn't provide an outlet for creativity.
"With our background, we wanted to do something in fashion, something we designed ourselves," Kono said.
They came up with a design for simple, loose-fitting dresses, jumpers, blouses and vests, in rich colors that can be easily mixed, matched and accessorized. While most of their clothes are solids, some are marked by whimsical hand-stamped or silk-screened designs. Prices run from abut $40 for a blouse to $70 for a dress.
"We know what we like," Kono explained. "Something cool, easy to care for. Although we use linen, it's linen that you don't need to dry clean."
"It's something for local figures, for people in our economic range, for working women," ages 25 and up, Seeney added.
They started selling their outfits at craft fairs and "were pleasantly surprised at the sales," Seeney said.
But, they found out quickly that fairs were labor intensive, requiring them to set up, stay all day, tear down and "schlep things back and forth."
They also noticed that although craft fairs were held generally 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., the crowds dropped off after lunch.
As an alternative, they began holding garage sales at Seeney's Palolo Valley home from 9 a.m. to noon Saturdays. It was ideal for the working mothers, who still had their weekends free.
"When we had to downsize (the factory) again, we looked for another spot and found this space in Manoa," Seeney said. They moved in in March 1996.
Manoa has turned out to be a convenient location for many customers. About 25 percent of the names on the mailing list have the Manoa zip code.
Since the retail shop seems to have found a niche, why not consider opening more often?
"Never!" Seeney said, emphatically.
As she observed, they've managed to stay in business all this time, so "we must be doing something right."
