Nadine Kam photos
Chocolate pearls and red coral are among items for sale in the Lucoral Museum's retail shop on Kuhio Avenue in Waikiki.

Lucoral Museum hosted a pearl party on June 6 in celebration of World Oceans Month. Only a healthy ocean can continue to offer up its many treasures, from vital sea creatures, to the fish and shellfish we eat to the beautiful pearls and shells we collect and wear.

Lucoral Museum founder Flora Lu offered up trays of multi-sized, multi-colored, multi-shaped pearls, remnants of the museum's retail creations, allowing lucky guests to string up their own necklaces or bracelets.

I'd never been to the museum and found it's a great place to visit, with an indoor rock cave featuring mineral and coral displays, and the museum's in the process of devising formal pearl parties for girlfriend getogethers or bridal parties, allowing women to come together for a little talk story and creativity, ending with a piece of beautiful keepsake pearl jewelry. Now that's my kind of party!

The museum's exhibitions demonstrate the sad fate of the ocean and sea beds due to man's lack of foresight.

According to the displays, pearls were gathered at Wai Momi, between 1785 and 1840. Europeans had dubbed the area Pearl Harbor because of the abundance of pearl oysters. But overharvesting and the silting of the harbor led to their extinction. The shop's pearls now come from Taiwan.

Flora Lu created the Lucoral Museum in memory of her mother Lu Hong Kui-Su, as a gift to the children of Hawaii and the world, promoting ocean health and the beauty of its many treasures.

The same thing happened in Kaneohe Bay, once home to edible clams. I thought I was dreaming because as a child I remembered going clamming with my parents, looking for the water spouts in the sand and digging them up, and taking them home in buckets to the dinner table. When I grew up, I wondered if that was a real memory because I don't hear of clams there anymore.

According to fellow Star-Advertiser "Ocean Watch" writer Susan Scott: "In the 1920s several species of clams and oysters were introduced from Japan and North America to Hawaiian waters as a food source. Among these was the Japanese littleneck clam, also known as the Manila clam. Gathering these clams on the mud flats of Kaneohe Bay was a popular activity until 1969, when silt and overharvesting mostly wiped out the beds."

As for the Pearl Harbor pearls, thousands were harvested, but according to the Lucoral Museum, no one knows where they went. None of the world's museums, including Bishop Museum, have a single known Hawaiian pearl in their collections.

For more information about World Ocean Month celebrations in conjunction with Waikiki Aquarium, visit http://www.waquarium.org/worldoceansmonth.html

————
The Lucoral Museum is at 2414 Kuhio Ave. Open 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Mondays to Fridays. Call 808.922.1999 or email lucoralmuseum@gmail.com.

These pearl necklaces were destined for Miss Hawaii contestants.

Flora oversees a group of novice pearl designers.

Lynn Cook gathered up these pearls to make a bracelet. (more...)

Nadine Kam photos
My late husband, Christopher Neil, during one of our lunches at Du Vin.

Yes, I've been absent from this blog for a while. Maybe you read in the paper or heard that my husband Christoper Neil died, and I have been dealing with all the personal matters that follow with the passing of a loved one.

For as much as I've been in the public eye, we were very private, so most people never knew we shared 22 wonderful years together, sharing among things, a love of fashion, though he rarely went overboard the way I did. Allowing for the occasional blue velvet jacket or luxe Etro jacket, he mostly had a classic sense of style formed in his college days: the black T-shirt or white dress shirt, paired with denim and a black jacket, typically from Banana Republic, Armani or J. Crew.

We met cute, in the Honolulu Newspaper Agency library at the old Honolulu Advertiser building, where he initially worked as a labor reporter, while I worked at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, initially in page design, while also reviewing restaurants and working on feature stories. Due to the competition between the two papers, the library was the neutral turf between the two newsrooms and we were something of an outlaw Romeo and Juliet couple. In fact, SB management forbade me from taking him on restaurant reviews to avoid "feeding the enemy," I was told.

Early photobooth sticker photo.

Shortly after we met in 1991, in my rock band days. Chris always knew his place. Kidding. Photographed by my friend Ed Dee Louie, as were the B/W photos below.

The two of us at Midweek style editor Yu Shing Ting's wedding in summer 2008.

It was a good thing he introduced himself (I had already asked Adv. reporter friends—guys—who he was and they were pretty meh; what do guys know?), because for our entire careers, he worked nights and I worked days, and after that first meeting, I rarely saw him in the building. Later on, he told me I wasn't very friendly that day, but what did he expect. I was working and here was this guy giving me the third degree in a rapid machine-gun fire sequence of questioning:"Who are you? What are you doing here? Who do you work for? What are you working on?"

I happened to be working on a story on Megadeth, a metal band whose lead guitarist, Marty Friedman, was from Hawaii, and when he knew the band and didn't mock me for what most newspeople would have considered a trifle of a music story, right then and there I decided he was the coolest guy in our two newsrooms.

Sometimes I would see him peeking into our newsroom from the top of the library's balcony steps, a big no-no. It was only at his celebration of life at Murphy's Bar & Grill May 14 that someone who once worked in the old newsroom told me that he was at the stairs looking for me, and when she'd tell him, "She's not here!" he'd run away. But I was there, I did see him and wondered what he was doing there. I never put two and two together.

My favorite story about getting to know him was when, after a couple of botched attempts to go to concerts together—he had invited me to Los Lobos but I couldn't make it, I had invited him to Dread Zeppelin but he couldn't make it—we ended up at some dive bar on Kapiolani Boulevard. I don't even remember the name of it. As we looked at the menus, he said, "I heard the sardines are good here."

Christopher at a restaurant in Kailua, where we lived for 10 years.

At that time, I was the first and only daily newspaper restaurant critic in town and most guys would have tried to impress me with their good taste and knowledge of food. Not Chris. He was neither pretentious nor ever went out of his way to impress anyone. He was just real and honest to a fault. I was so enamored that in my review of Manoa's Cafe Brio one year, I spelled his name out in the first sentence of every paragraph.

Chris had a beguiling mix of swagger and sensitivity. A rock star is what many people called him. He had an aura and energy that drew people in, irregardless of age or gender. Even those who only met him once came away with strong opinions about Chris and after his passing they were able to detail all the particulars of their meeting.

He cultivated a tough facade, but I knew him to be a kind, sensitive soul. "A soft touch," is how a colleague described his generosity. He was a selfless individual in many big and small ways. Even when he was sick, he put my needs and feelings above his own, so if I came home after a hard day he would ask, with great concern, if I was all right and would do everything possible to make things right. If I even mentioned in passing, that I was hungry, he'd jump out of bed to make me cheese and crackers, when simply moving caused him great pain.

After Chris became sick with lung cancer, whenever he felt sorry for himself, he often thought of students he met in his college dormitory at Kent State, before he moved on to earn a Philosophy degree at Boston University. At school in Ohio, able-bodied students were paired with handicapped students, many of whom had but a few more years to live. Yet, they worked so diligently toward their degrees. He admired their tenacity and the experience taught him a lesson in the strength and capacity of the human spirit. He had also learned early, growing up in Connecticut, about the inequities of life and the arbitrary nature of wealth and poverty, as well as the generational continuity of both states. It made him a crusader for equality and the idea that every child deserves a chance to succeed in life.

Neither I nor doctors could keep him alive, but I do want to keep his spirit alive.

Since the death of his friend Alex Lee, an aspiring chef who was killed outside a bar in the early 1990s when he was in his 20s, Chris and I had always talked about establishing a culinary scholarship once we retired and had some spare cash. I can't think of a more appropriate time than now to make his wish come true, which is why I have established a culinary scholarship at KCC's Culinary Institute.

For those who wish to contribute, checks can be made out to UH Foundation, with the notation "Christopher Neil scholarship fund," and sent to:

Linh Hoang, Director of Development
UH Foundation, Kapiolani Community College
4303 Diamond Head Road, ‘Ilima 212
Honolulu, HI 96816

Thank you so much for allowing me to indulge my memories of Christopher.

Nadine Kam photos
Island Slipper owner John Carpenter is surrounded by some of his employees, next to Dorothy Kohashi in mu'umu'u. She is the daughter of Island Slipper founders Takizo and Misao Motonaga .

May 10 was a holiday for employees of Island Slipper, whose only obligation to the company that day was to show up in time for a bus ride to the grand opening of the company's new store at the Royal Hawaiian Center, before heading to lunch courtesy of boss John Carpenter, at Tsukiji Fish Market and Restaurant at Ala Moana Center.

The new store was designed in the nostalgic spirit of the beach homes that existed before the concrete and hotels that now line Waikiki. Located on the center's second floor, the shop's exterior stands out in its seafoam color, with warm wood interior.

Where most slipper shops are crammed into a small footprint, with wares simply lined wall to wall, Island Slipper has the luxury of 2,000 square feet, with lots of open space and retro displays paying homage to the company's 67-year history.

"We had to bring our game up because Waikiki is a different market," Carpenter said, adding, "Our desire was to create a fun place to shop where our customers feel at home."

Showcased are Island Slipper's signature floral-designed footwear, as well as women's designs incorporating beads, raffia and pyramid studs, and men's designs in leather and suede.

I was a little late to the opening, and walked in to find a surprise waiting for me. In 2011, I'd attended the grand reopening of Island Slipper's Ward Warehouse store and was impressed enough to write a feature story about the company. I happen to have Cinderella size feet, so the slippers didn't fit me. So I suggested to John that he add children's styles so I might be able to fit. He explained it wasn't that simple, so I figured the time wasn't right.

Children's slippers have yet to materialize, but in the meantime, he searched the globe for a smaller women's last and created a prototype size 4 for li'l ole me me, and, it fit! Oh happy day, it is so hard to find size 4s, much less my actual size, a 3! So I will be wearing my new white floral slippers around, and definitely will be kicking around New York streets in my Island Slippers in a few weeks!

——————
Island Slipper stores are at Ward Warehouse (593-8229) and Royal Hawaiian Center Buiding A, Level 2 (923-2222).
Online: www.islandslipper.com

The exterior of Island Slipper recreates the ambience of a beach house.

A pune'e adds to the beach house feel.

Vintage Island Slippers on display.

Featured from left are recent collaboration designs created for J. Crew,  Japan fashion designer Tsumori Chisato, and Barney's New York.

Additional accessories capture Island Slippers island style.

One of many posters inviting shoppers to consider their sense of island lifestyle.

The Male'ana collection of honeymooner slippers, with examples above and below, allow couples to match without being matchy-matchy.

As company owner, John Carpenter can do what he wants and created the only existing pair of studded white "Elvis" slippers just for himself. (more...)

If I were ordering a Vara, I'd probably choose this neutral Bisque with a pop of Ruby, but they don't have my size.

With customization in the zeitgeist, Salvatore Ferragamo is marking the 35th anniversary of its Vara shoe by giving clients the opportunity to design their own pair of Vara or Varina shoes by choosing the material, color, grosgrain bow and hardware. There are 63 possible combinations, and the offer will be available for a year, with new color introductions to accompany each new season.

The original Vara is a midheel shoe with grosgrain bow. The Varina is a ballet flat version of the shoe introduced in 2007.

The cost of the shoes, including a metal plate on the bottom bearing the wearer's initials, and shipping anywhere in the United States, is $550.

Visit www.ferragamo.com to try your hand at design. To see how some tastemakers wear their Varas and Varinas, visit icona.ferragamo.com, which will post photographer Claiborne Swanson Frank's portraits of 21 women over 21 days this month.

Of course, it's hard to pick just one pair, so this Powder Blue with Oxford Blue bow and heel, would balance the Bisque and Ruby.

Nadine Kam photos
Trouser fabric samples from Salvatore Ambrosi of Ambrosi Napoli, at Leather Soul Downtown.

Leather Soul Downtown teamed up with Hong Kong haberdashery The Armoury to bring bespoke tailoring by Orazio Luciano of Naples, Italy, to Hono­lulu on April 2 for an exclusive made-to-measure event, also featuring third-generation trouser specialist Salvatore Ambrosi of Ambrosi Napoli.

The clothiers were in Honolulu  to introduce fine Neapolitan tailoring, noted for unpadded construction and lines that make them lighter to wear than their English and American counterparts, according to Leather Soul owner Tom Park.

The Armoury partners Ethan Newton and Alan See were on hand, with Newton performing fittings that took about an hour, not because it takes that long be measured, but because it generally takes clients that long to pick their fabric.Made-to-measure jackets start at $3,100, trousers at $700, and at those prices, no one wants to change their mind later.

As one client, Reid Takamoto said, he'll be watching what he's eating from now on, lest he outgrow his pants. Newton said it's never a good idea to get into the habit of adding some "give" to the waistband. Not only is the object of bespoke tailoring about the perfect fit, but if you give yourself room to expand, you will.

Non-flash video link

One of Leather Soul's clients meets with, from left, Ethan Newton of the Armoury, trouser maker Salvatore Ambrosi, and Alan See, also of The Armoury.

The new length of pants, with wide cuffs, the better to show off footwear from Leather Soul!