Noa Noa Hawaii

In the early 1980’s I lived in Fiji. While in Fiji I was introduced to the ancient craft of Tapa that appears in different forms throughout the South Pacific and Indo-Pac. Tapa is made of tree bark. Mulberry bark is soaked and pounded to fashion a rough paper. Each island has its own unique designs that are stamped on the bark cloth. I have used these designs as a basis for motifs in our Noa Noa designs. Through the art of batik, we duplicate the tapa designs in our clothing. Our designs are made into copper chops. The chops are then dipped in hot wax and stamped on the fabric. The fabric is the dyed and treated for permanence. Lastly boiled and washed to remove the wax. Because we batik small amounts of fabric for each designthere are very few repeat combinations of design and colors. We manufacture our clothing in Bali at a small family run batik workshop. In 1980 our first Noa Noa store opened on the island of Saipan, in the Marianas islands. In 1983 we opened in Kona Hawaii. We currently have four stores. Oahu: Ward Village / International Marketplace Big Island: Kings Shop Waikoloa / Mauna Kea Resorts