A fashion success story that began by accident

By Paula Rath
Advertiser Staff Writer

Hilo Hattie CEO Paul deVille kicks back in a mango-wood rocking chair ($495) that's part of the store's new furniture line. A teak bed frame ($1,250), hula girl lamp ($130) and mahogany end table ($395) have a nostalgic feel. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser Who was Hilo Hattie? If you're younger than 40, chances are you don't know who the real Hilo Hattie was. Born Clarissa Haili on Oct. 28, 1901, she became one of the Islands' most beloved entertainers in the 1950s and 1960s. She began as a schoolteacher, but her comic hula captured the hearts of tourists and kama'aina. Among her best-known hula were "Princess Pupule Has Plenty Papayas" and "When Hilo Hattie Does the Hilo Hop." She died in 1979. The company notes on its Web site that Haili gave her blessing to its use of her stage name. The Hilo Hattie company honors her legacy with a University of Hawai'i scholarship for students of Hawaiian studies and music.

Others fall into it. Jim Romig tumbled.

As Hilo Hattie passes the 40-year mark with continued growth, an expansive online site, kama'aina fashions and a homestyle line, Romig looks back on his accidental career in fashion with a chuckle.

Forty-one years ago, he never would have placed himself at the helm of a fashion-based company in Honolulu.

After he graduated from the University of the Pacific in Stockton, Calif., with a degree in business, Romig went to work for Boeing in the Pacific Northwest, but that didn't last long.

He yearned to sail the world and got a job as first mate on a 110-foot yacht. Ports in Australia, New Zealand and Asia all had appeal for the young adventurer, but in Hawai'i, "I fell in love with the palm trees and pretty girls," he said.

In Tahiti, Romig fell in love with the fabrics. He brought bolts of the bold two-colored cottons back to Hawai'i, where he continued to live on a boat while selling fabric to retailers and seamstresses.

A friend suggested Romig make a shirt of the Tahitian fabric. It was the early '60s, and color was bursting onto the fashion scene, from Paris to London to Los Angeles.

With no experience in tailoring, designing or sewing, the audacious young man bought a Simplicity pattern at Sears and asked a seamstress to make a few shirts.

He took the finished shirts to Liberty House and got his first order. With a $250 loan from the bank, he managed to fill it. Orders then poured in from Ross Sutherland, Reyn's and Sears. An aloha shirt manufacturer was born.

The wholesaler became a retailer by accident, too. Romig's friend Joe Kaauwai, a Kaua'i policeman and college classmate, was offered a retail shop on a stretch of road between Lihu'e and Kapa'a, and asked Romig to partner with him. They built a little grass shack, called it Kaluna Hawaii Sportswear and asked tour operators to make the store a regular visitor stop.

Before long, Tahiti couldn't supply enough fabrics for the burgeoning business, and Romig started making his own prints with local textile designers.

In the early '60s, a lot of Hawaiian wear was made for tourists who snapped up the bright — often garish — aloha shirts or matching mu'umu'u. Romig catered to the trade with a Waikiki store called Match Mates Hawai'i. Prints were loud and boisterous, and the tourist was the firm's sole market target.

ROMIG

In recent years, as tourism has gone through ups and downs, Hilo Hattie has begun marketing to kama'aina. Garments have evolved from kitschy voluminous styles and fabrics to a more slimmed-down silhouette.

Recently, silk twill was introduced in a line of contemporary men's and women's clothing.

"We take what's fashionable in Paris fashion houses and adapt it to our prints," Romig said.

While the company, under the banner of Pomare Ltd., grows and changes under the leadership of CEO Paul deVille, Jim Romig still heads back to the sea, splitting his days between Hilo Hattie, where he is chairman, and a deep-sea fishing boat. He may have outgrown the romantic notion of living aboard, but Romig still spends as much time as he can sailing, where Hilo Hattie had its start.

Home wares and silk wear

In a nod to the nostalgia for the '40s and '50s, when kama'aina lounged on comfy old carved wood pune'e and hikie'e covered with well-worn dobby tropical print fabrics, Hilo Hattie has introduced a line of home furnishings and accessories.

The solid wood pieces, made of teak, mahogany and mango, include carved accents of leaves, pineapples and tropical flowers. They're designed and made in Asia and purchased locally from the Hawaiian Furniture & Lamp Co.

Home accessories are equally nostalgic, though decidedly more kitschy. Hula-girl lamps, pineapple cookie jars and turtle-theme boxes are designed to complement the furnishings.

Find examples of the company's new look at its Ala Moana Center seasonal Hilo Hattie store (on the diamondhead end, mall level, next to Macy's and across from Shirokiya), or the Nimitz or Ala Moana "lifestyle" stores. Or check out what the company claims is the world's largest Hawai'i-oriented Internet site, www.HiloHattie.com.

Hilo Hattie has also created four new categories of kama'aina-targeted clothing brands: Surf's Up, youth-oriented surf attire and branded products; Life is a Luau, featuring loud, colorful prints; Contemporary Aloha: silks with an Island accent; and Island Traditions, a line of subtle prints, suitable for Bishop Street.