ABOVE: Anything you can do, she can do it in a muu. Once a month, Kauai fashionistas don their muumuu and get together for tea, lei making or, seen above, skeet shooting at Petal & Pistol. Begun by muu enthusiast Jamilee Jimenez (fourth from left), the Monthly Muu events are bringing muu back into the mainstream.
She's one of a collective of young women revitalizing vintage Island fashion, including the much beloved (and sometimes maligned) muu. A year ago she decided to "go for it" by inviting women to wear their muu to gatherings, from walking tours and fashion shows to line dancing and skeet shooting. "We do things people already do," says Jimenez. "Just add muu."
A Native Hawaiian, Jimenez believes muu should be celebrated, from $10 thrift-store to $1,000-plus Etsy and eBay finds. Christian missionaries introduced muumuu, which means to "cut off" or "shorten," in the 1820s; originally they were worn as a chemise. Over time the breezy garments came out of hiding and were designed for all occasions. Jimenez's favorites include Tahiti imports, Pegge Hopper prints, some wow pieces by Allen Akina and contemporary designers Nakeu Awai, Bete Muu and Princess Kaiulani.
At the Monthly Muu events on Kauai, women show up in an array of vintage and modern muu. The common denominators are creativity and whimsicality. At a recent skeet shooting meetup at Petal & Pistol, Jimenez wore a rare gardenia print by Nakeu Awai. Petal & Pistol is a French country market, gun club and rose farm where women can cultivate their love of heirloom roses while blowing clay pigeons out of the sky with a sporting shotgun. "Only one of us had ever shot a gun before," Jimenez laughs. "We all hit the target. We became so dangerous."
The month after skeet it was wreath making at Melrose, a heritage property built by Honolulu architect Guy Nelson Rothwell, restored from ignominy as a gas station to the kind of café and fine goods emporium one might find along Paris' 8th arrondissement. Passersby at Muu Melrose would have been treated to a postcard moment: a dozen women in flowing muu, seated at a rustic table surrounded by botanicals and chatting over Turkish coffee, with nary a gas pump in sight.
"Hawaii is experiencing a muumuu revival," says Keane Akao, COO and godson of designer Nakeu Awai, Jimenez's friend and collaborator. "People who have grown up with their grandparents wearing muu are embracing their heritage."
Jimenez's own love for aloha wear is generational. Her grandmother had a shop called Shanora in the 1970s and '80s where garments would be handmade while women waited, and fastened with coconut-shell buttons. "My grandparents really believed you had to make what you sell," says Jimenez. "I am always on Etsy and eBay looking for her label," She's reclaimed two Shanora muu, an aloha shirt and one of her grandmother's pareo designs. "Every muu has a story," she says, "and every story is an opportunity to honor our kupuna [ancestors] and share cherished memories."
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