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Back in the day when sewing your own clothes was the only way the average woman could imagine having a fabulous wardrobe without striking it rich, Kaimuki Dry Goods and Kuni Dry Goods carried the stuff of which dreams were made.
The prominent family-run stores were wonderlands of colors, textures, buttons, trims and ribbons, where women who loved to sew could revel in the endless choices like kids in a candy store. (Remember, girls even made their own prom dresses back then.)
In the 1950s and 60s there were scores of fabric stores in the state until homemakers joined the workforce and no longer had time to sew, a nationwide cultural turning point in the 1980s. Now the Kaimuki Dry Goods, and the Kuni store (now known as Kuni Island Fabrics) are only among a handful left of an industry, which has survived largely due to a popular interest in making quilts, not clothes.
The owners are friendly competitors who work together in occasional promotions to stimulate sales for everyone in the small fabric community. They come from different perspectives on running their businesses, but what they do agree on is that their stores may not be around in another five years.
Dee Dee Miyashiro, who has run Kaimuki Dry Goods since 1993, said if the last 10 years have been very difficult, “now it’s extremely challenging!” Longtime customers are getting too old to sew much, and younger ones prefer to shop online at cheaper prices, she said. “The internet has had probably the biggest negative effect on our industry,” she said, but it’s a dilemma faced by most brick-and-mortar businesses. People are always saddened to see their favorite stores or restaurants from a bygone era shut down, but “if they don’t support us, we’re not going to be around much longer.”
Kaimuki Dry Goods has found a way to subsist since it was a mom-and-pop general store founded in 1926 by Takao and Masako Ozawa (Miyashiro’s grandparents), originally next to First Hawaiian Bank on Waialae Avenue. When it ran into too much competition from department store chains in the 1960s, it evolved into a fabric store, and stayed afloat through a downsizing move to another location.
Miyashiro’s mother, Edith Takeya, ran the store from 1972 to 1993. Miyashiro has been working at the store since she was 17, but took charge when her mother retired, and her brother Kenneth Takeya helps with the bookkeeping. The store used to have 25 employees, many of whom could share their sewing expertise with customers; now it has eight. The last old-timer who left was manager Pam Metzger, who retired in August 2018 after 35 years, and it’s been harder to cope without her.
“Pam was not only an integral part of our store, but of my life. She was someone I could truly depend upon for just about anything, including helping me with my mom when she needed more care,” Miyashiro said.
Miyashiro said her mother would never have dreamed the industry would unravel to this extent. Takeya thought there would always be people who wanted to create personalized garments or items you couldn’t find in a store. But it’s become “a throw-away society,” and people gravitate toward the cheaper prices available online, Miyashiro said.
Kaimuki Dry Goods has always been known for its vast selection of quality novelty fabrics — everything from adorable sea creatures to whimsical hot dogs — inspiring many a cherished project. But there aren’t enough people around who still savor the experience of fingering the merchandise and immersing themselves in the sensory abundance found in brick-and-mortar stores to compensate for people who’d rather buy online. Miyashiro still enjoys helping customers coordinate colors and designs, and solve their problems, “but it has to be profitable. There’s still the rent, the insurance, and everything else to pay.”
She’s also hampered by the physical limitations of age. Miyashiro, 71, surmised that the owners of the other fabric stores are “all about the same age, so we’ll all probably close at the same time.” There’s no younger generation to take over when she’s retired.
The name lives on
The same goes for Terri Kamakana, who started Kuni Island Fabrics 22 years ago.
Her store grew out of Kuni Dry Goods, founded by the Kunimune family, which had several outlets in its heyday. After 71 years in Moiliili on the corner of University Avenue and King Street, the family closed its doors in 1996.
Only a month later, Kamakana opened Kuni Island Fabrics in January 1997, basically because she needed a job. She kept the “Kuni” in the store’s name because “I wanted the name to live on, and it was an advantage to me.”
Kamakana, who is in her 60s, had worked for the family patriarch as a buyer or manager from 1975, “Harry Kunimune treated me like a daughter.” The family also owns the property her tiny store sits on today, a couple doors away from the original site.
Four employees from the original store stayed with her, and two are still with her today, ages 82 and 89; two recently retired at 72 and 87. A customer once compared the store to Cheers, the legendary bar of TV fame, where everybody knows your name. “I always felt happy about that. We know our customers, and my employees have stayed with me; it’s been good.”
There is only 800 square feet of retail space downstairs, but luckily she has an additional 600 square feet upstairs to run a sewing school that has been a steady source of income. “We try everything in the world: classes, kits … What has kept us alive is the quilting industry,” Kamakana said.
The store is known for its Japanese fabrics, popular in Moiliili where many Japanese immigrants settled when they first came to Hawaii. People still make traditional happi coats, chan-chan-ko kimono infant vests and zabutons (floor cushions), and know they can still find the patterns at Kuni — “There’s a lot of tradition in this area that we’ve kept up.” While most of the customers are over 60, there is a cluster of 40-plus working people, and students who start at age 10.
Kamakana is always looking for promotional ways to stimulate sales for all the stores, which may work for Kuni, but not necessarily for Kaimuki Dry Goods —“I’m small, I can control the expenses, but she’s (Miyashiro) got such a huge store.” With retail space four times the size of Kuni’s, Kaimuki is more affected by business slumps, Kamakana acknowledged.
“I like to think of (the sewing industry) coming back, but I know it will never be what it used to be,” Kamakana said. “Customers from the mainland say stores are closing there, too. But I always think there will be a need for the creative.”
“Old Friends” catches up with longtime local food producers. It runs on the third week of each month. Email suggestions to crave@staradvertiser.com or call Pat Gee at 529-4749.
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