Dear Moira,
As I indicated in my comment on your review of Lies and Weddings I enjoy Kevin Kwan’s books. Sharon and I are on a cruise off the coast of Africa and I just finished reading the book. I raced through it. A link to my review is below.
As with you I was captivated by the description of the dress Eden chose to wear to the wedding of her friend, Lady Augusta (Augie).
Instead of the “peach organdy and lace Dolce & Gabbana halter neck gown that Bea had lent her” with the £4,700 price tag still attached Eden goes to the resort boutique to buy “a dress she loved”.
Kwan describes the dress as follows:
It was a black floor-length dress printed with a gold fan pattern on a voluminous skirt created by the Hawaiian designer Manaola.
To finish her look she pins fresh hibiscus blossoms in her hair “and did something she had never done before: she put on red lipstick”.
The hibiscus flowers in her hair would have been so striking.
While the dresses you showed on your blog are wonderful, I decided to look online for the dress described by Kwan as he listed the designer’s name.
I believe I found the dress. A photo is above.
The dress is from the 2017 collection of the Hawaiian designer, Carrington Manaola Yap.
The website for his high school, Parker School, states:
Yap, a self-taught designer, shared with students details and video from his New York Fashion Week debut in 2017 when he became the first Native Hawaiian designer to present Hawaiian culture and fashion during this internationally esteemed fashion event. The following year, Yap also became the first Native Hawaiian designer to present an exclusive collection for Saks Fifth Avenue.
A link to his fascinating video address to the students during Covid is below.
The dress features a Pe’ahi Niu print. On his website he states:
The Pe’ahi is a primitive print honoring the crescent-shaped Hawaiian fans reserved for Hawaiian royalty. Made of intricately woven coconut pandanus leaves, these fans are often depicted in lithographs by high-ranking monarchs for both practical and ceremonial use. These native artifacts are now highly revered for their royal association and preserved in the likes of Hawai’i’s Bishop Museum, as well as a special collection of Pe’ahi Niu in London’s British Museum.
Manaola pays homage to these heirlooms with an ethnographic print that blends his affection for Hawaiian traditions and modern fashion in unexpected formations.
If the the dress at the top of the post is not the dress, I found a powerful photo of a model from the show wearing a voluminous print skirt. It is spectacular.
I can see why Eden drew the eyes of everyone at the wedding despite the abundance of haute design gowns around her.
I expect Eden would have paid a few hundred dollars for her dress. Most clothes on Manaola's website are priced under two hundred dollars.
If you have any comments on my posts please let me know and I will include them on the blog.
All the best.
Bill
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Kwan, Kevin - (2019) - Crazy Rich Asians and China Rich Girlfriend and Rich People Problems
I hope you're having a wonderful time on your cruise, Bill. It sounds fabulous. And speaking of fabulous, thank you for sharing the research you did on that dress. The dresses in the photos are beautiful and unique. They'd certainly turn heads. It's interesting to know, too, where designers get their inspiration. Sometimes an inspirational connection is obvious; sometimes it's not. It's nice to learn those things.
ReplyDeleteMargot: Thanks for the comment. We have had an excellent cruise. I had not realized how interesting the dress was in design and origin until I looked up Manaola. He is a very talented man.
DeleteOh my goodness Bill, what a find! I loved your first post on the book, nodding my head all the way through, and then my mouth fell open when I saw the results of your searches on the black fan dress. Amazing! I will email you more...
ReplyDeleteMoira: Thanks for the kind words. I found Manaolo a fascinating designer. I have received your email and am putting up another post.
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