Island People
Local stylist makes waves with freeform, one-of-a-kind designs

By Paula Rath
Advertiser Staff Writer

It was the sexy lauhala bustier that caught my eye. This unique style statement was on the cover of Robi Kahakalau's latest CD, "All I Want," and all I wanted was to know more about it.

Five minutes before this photo was shot, this dress was a Goodwill $3 special. Stylist Eric Pai cut it up, stapled it together and began creating a gown for entertainer Robi Kahakalau. Pai's unique designs draw quite a bit of attention. Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser

Who made that? Where did the idea come from? I had to find out. A call to Kahakalau revealed the hidden talent: Eric Pai.

"I got the idea from a tiny picture in Vogue magazine of Claudia Schiffer in a bustier and just thought that a similar design might work out of lauhala," said Pai, whose day job is a hair and makeup artist at Max Bravo Salon in Discovery Bay.

He fashioned a prototype on a mini-mannequin, wetting the lauhala and shaping it to fit the form. He found that sewing the lauhala was not a problem.

"It was amazingly easy to work with," he said.

Pai, a Kaiser High School graduate, is not a fashion designer by training. He arrived at his styling ability by quite another route: His father, the late Antone Pai, a former Honolulu fire chief, taught him to sew.

"He never used a pattern, he just went snip, snip, snip and sewed up things, and somehow it worked," recalled Pai's mother, Barbara, of her husband's unconventional abilities. The older Pai made his wife a mu'umu'u and maternity clothes, as well as blankets and other household items.

Eric Pai apparently inherited the sewing-without-a-pattern gene. One Christmas, he cut up a Hawaiian print bedspread and made a bathrobe for his mother. The fit was perfect. Next came curtains for the living room, his mother said with pride.

Unlike more conventional fashion designers, who learn to draft patterns by one of three methods — flat pattern, pattern by measurement, or draping — Pai simply attacks his projects with scissors, staples, tape — whatever is at hand when inspiration strikes.

"Measurement confuses me," he said with a chuckle. "I would feel stifled if I had to have the boundaries of a pattern; then I'd get bored. The faster I can get (the materials) to drape and work my way, the better."

The lack of formal training clearly contributes to his style, offering him the freedom to create with unexpected materials and unlimited sculptural potential. He seems to be able to shape nearly anything to fit the human form.

Pai sees his fashions as a natural extension of his profession, hair design:

"I work from the outside in to achieve a silhouette and shape. Hair and dresses should move, not just stand there. I get a better feeling for that if I can manipulate with my hands."

Pai was "discovered" by Ambiance Salon when he was a junior in high school. "I was just playing around with makeup on models for a show and I was spotted by Ambiance and offered an apprenticeship," Pai said.

He realized quickly that there was more money in hair than in makeup, so he started doing both. "As an apprentice, no one taught me how to do hair out of the book. They let me have my own sculpture, so to speak. So that's how I looked at it — not as sections or angles — just my own interpretation of what the final shape should be."

Pai started working with Kahakalau in an equally haphazard way. She gets her hair done at the salon where he works, and one day when her stylist was off-Island, Pai cut her hair. "From the first time he touched my hair, I was sold. I said 'This is it.' "

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Eric Pai AGE: 37 HOMETOWN: Hawai'i Kai POSITION: Hair stylist and makeup artist at Max Bravo Salon, Discovery Bay; also private stylist to select clients. CLAIM TO FAME: Stylist to celebrities and beauty queens. NEXT PROJECT: Hoku Awards gown for Robi Kahakalau. ODDITY: Pai loves animals of all kinds. He has a blue-and-gold macaw, a 150-gallon fish tank and a pig named Pork Chop that lives indoors and gets his toenails painted — pink, of course.

Three years ago, the relationship between stylist and entertainer segued into Pai's designing Kahakalau's gown for the Hoku Awards. He took a pile of hand-me-down prom dresses, cut them up and sewed them together for a dress that got lots of attention.

"It was an awesome design ... a showstopper," Kahakalau recalled, "Everyone asked me for his card, not mine. Now, I think he's one of the best things that ever happened to me, in my personal life and my girlie-girlie life."

Kahakalau calls her friend "one of Hawai'i's biggest hidden talents."

Pai has an extensive background in beauty pageant hair and makeup. He styled three Miss Hawai'is: Kanoe Aberegg, Courtney Glaza and Pam Kimura. Kimura took him to the Miss America pageant with her. He also styled all three women for their weddings.

But he isn't planning to work with any more Miss thises or Miss thats. "I've done so many pageants, and I'm so done with pageants," he said.

His TV credits include doing hair and makeup for the Beachboys' 25th anniversary special, for Mary Wilson of the Supremes and for Fox TV for Miss Fitness America and Miss Inside Sports.

Although Pai enjoys fashion design, he plans to "keep it at a hobby level right now, so it remains a lot of fun for me. I want to keep my sewing to just a few incredible things, not to become a retail designer. I want to be a special, one-of-a-kind, everyone-wants-one-but-can't-get-one designer."