Scarcity making handmade lei a labor of love

By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer

Gregory Yamamoto• The Honolulu Advertiser

Gayle Harimoto searches for crown flowers — 1,000 of them — for each hand-strung lei. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

She has learned to pick in late afternoon, when the petals surrounding the "crown" have the right spring. The inner crowns are used later to make a second lei. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

Now retired, Harimoto began making rounds to pick the flowers about 10 years ago.

"It was good for me to come home from work. I would walk around, I got to know my neighbors," she said.

It's a scenario familiar to most kama'aina, but an increasingly nostalgic one. Lei-giving is as entrenched a Hawai'i tradition as ever, and handmade lei still reign at school May Day pageants.

But few people feel they have the time, energy or landscaping materials to string their own for more private celebrations — a sad development, some would say, for an art form rooted in personal creativity and generosity.

Harimoto may be an endangered species, but she's not alone — yet. Tamara Moan has plumeria growing in the yard at the Kailua house she shares with her cousin, Cassie Rooney. On most days of their busy lives, this means nothing more than a deeper pile of wilted flowers and browning leaves scattered beneath the branches. Every so often, though, the tree provides the makings of a sweet gift.

"When it's blooming, we tend to use it for occasions, for birthdays," Moan said. "One day, on my birthday, Cassie disappeared for a long time. It turned out she was in the bathroom making a lei for me."

Some die-hard practitioners do continue to nurture the tradition, but they're discouraged by the scarcity of leisure time and flowering plants alike.

"People don't have a front yard anymore," said longtime lei maker Bill Char, whose Kalihi garden is a cornucopia of lehua, maile, you name it.

Patient study

At the least, the lei maker needs compliant neighbors; Harimoto's yield her their backyard bounty. At 56, she has the time to devote to

lei making, having retired from the public schools' personnel office. But she began making her trademark crown-flower "snake" lei while still working, when she spotted one worn by a friend.

"I looked at it and thought, 'I can't do that,'" she said. But she looked a little more closely and eventually realized she could.

After about 10 years or so of making them for love, the Pearl City resident no longer remembers who was the first recipient. She has learned a few tricks, though — for example, picking in the late afternoons, when the "crown" first emerges from the pod, because the surrounding petals have just enough spring when she strings about 1,000 of them into the tubular lei.

The crowns produce a second more conventional set of strands twisted into a tight rope. A day's picking and lei-making adds up to six to eight hours of work, she said.

Harimoto visits her neighbors' yards daily, sometimes helping a friend nearby with her Micronesian-weave hibiscus lei-making.

But it's the purplish crownflower "snake" garlands that have earned renown, though not a dime for herself (they have been used to raise money for Aloha United Way, she said). Many in the entertainment community are greeted with a snake lei on opening night, and

Harimoto is thrilled by their appreciation.

"When I get a call from (singers) Nina Keali'iwahamana or Karen Keawehawai'i thanking me for the lei, that's what makes it worth it," she said.

Harimoto doesn't reserve her lei for the famous, and often will deposit one on a friend unexpectedly just because she knows they'll love it.

GAYLE HARIMOTO

They all know his name, but he's asked them not to share it with the newspaper, said Hawaiian Airlines customer service agent James Miyahira.

"Every Saturday for as long as I've been here, he comes," Miyahira said. "I think it's a team project for him and his wife. Apparently, they drive around and they get the special flowers."

Market dictates

If these people were the rule rather than the exception, lei authority Marie McDonald wouldn't feel so discouraged. Lei-making is becoming wholly commercialized, she said, and local lei shops don't even produce all their inventory.

"They import leis made from orchids that grow in Thailand," said McDonald, best known for her books on lei-making. "They import the leis, all made, to meet the demands of the tourist industry."

Tourism gave birth to a full-fledged lei trade here, starting with the greeters who met ocean liners at the pier, she said. The demand became too great for a cottage industry to bear, which culminated in imports of lei materials — including those orchids from Thailand, and maile from the Cook Islands.

Many people point to increasingly intricate lei designs as reason to leave the craft to the professionals. And McDonald is among the many who've observed that the crackdown in security at airports has robbed Hawai'i of a major reason to make your own lei: Airport sendoff parties are no longer possible when friends can't come to the gate.

"I just went to the airport," she said, "and there was none of this nice, old-time atmosphere of leaving. The fact that you have to wait two hours ... how can you be festive?"

Classes are offered in haku and wili lei-making to rekindle interest, but many of those inclined toward handcrafts have turned to faux, ribbon- or yarn-woven lei.

Many prefer faux

Ben Franklin Crafts still stocks the wire lei needles for do-it-yourselfers that used to be standard equipment in Isle kitchen drawers. But there's usually demand for them only around Lei Day, said Joy Shimabukuro, the store crafts manager. Seemingly, they're a little hard to come by, too: The Ben Franklin buyer didn't want to reveal the manufacturer's name for fear they wouldn't be able to find another supplier, she added.

No such problems exist for yarn lei makers, Shimabukuro said.

"The reason they're making the faux leis is, with the yarn, they're lightweight and they can coordinate with all of their outfits," she said.

"And it does last forever."

Harimoto sniffs at that.

"Us flower people are not into fake leis," she said.

Nothing bought in a crafts store can replace what Harimoto gathers in her crown-flower quests through Wahinani Street, walking around, getting to know her neighbors.

"It was relaxing," she said.

But the big payoff comes in the look on the wearer's face.

"When they find out I made it, it adds to the joy of wearing it," she said. "Someone made it for them. That's why I do it."

Reach Vicki Viotti at vviotti@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8053.