Hāwane Sunshine Women's Midi Dress

Midi dress with bell sleeves and V-neck, string tie in the back. Comes with a long matching fabric tie for optional use at the waist. Limited quantity print. Hand-drawn fabric print illustrations. Designed, cut, and sewn in Hawai‘i on imported fabric.

Made with draping 100% Lyocell, a rayon twill fabric. Lyocell is a fiber that is intended as a silk substitute derived from wood pulp. It a natural fabric in the same family as Modal and Tencel that is more breathable than cotton. It is a luxury eco-fabric, made in a closed-loop cycle from sustainably grown wood, often eucalyptus. No plastic, polyester, or cotton used here; instead, enjoy this all-natural sustainable wood pulp fiber with a luxurious silk texture. Machine wash and dry on a gentle setting.

THE STORY BEHIND THE DESIGN

Loulu palm, or Pritchardia, is the only native Hawaiian palm genus. It is useful for its large fronds, a shield from the sun and rain, as well as for weaving items such as hats. Its fruit, hāwane, once was considered delicious to eat. Unfortunately, rats that arrived for the first time to the islands with the first Polynesian canoes also loved the fruit of this palm. Once a dominant forest species, a thousand years of rats eating most of their seeds resulted in scattered remnant populations of these formerly ubiquitous palms.

One species, Pritchardia hillebrandii, is featured in this print. An islet off the coast of Moloka'i has an untouched strand of this particular blue-green palm species, giving a sense of what a forest of loulu would look like."