4 New Boutiques With Impeccable Taste

Here’s our tasting menu of some of the most stylish new stores on O‘ahu.

April 30, 2015

Natalie Schack,

We’re serving up quite the feast, so we hope you brought your appetite for shopping. On the table is a scrumptious delight of well-seasoned nuggets using the finest local ingredients from around the island: fresh new stores, just opened this year, that have a delicious supply of goods and clothing you’ll want to gorge on. Treat yourself to a small taste of each item on this marketplace menu, or go crazy with a fashion feeding frenzy all at once.

The best part of this sumptuous spread? You can’t overindulge.

The appetizer: Shop Nova

744 Kapahulu Ave, 737-6682

Start out close to home with a little taste of Lachelle Rodrigues’ fashion and thrift favorites at her new Kapahulu boutique, which carries both hand-picked retro homewares and trendy separates. Rodrigues keeps busy between home, the store and her full-time job as an insurance consultant, but she still finds time to curate fun little glass dishes, pretty baubles and vintage or upcycled fashions that—and this is key—she herself would wear. Some of her latest additions are tees by Akua Creative, a Big Island-based brand that focuses on nature-inspired graphic elements.

The first course: James After Beach Club (pictured right)

3045 Monsarrat Ave., 737-8982

You’ll also want to take a bite out of another new town-based boutique, James After Beach Club, which absolutely screams Hawai‘i and surf culture. Masayoshi Shioya already has a lot of fashion success under his belt, with two Japan-based stores and two clothing lines, Studio Oribe and Delicious. You can find a modest collection of both brands’ latest pieces, a mix of classic, styles and cuts with rustic, utilitarian details. Also in stock are great gifts: Baggu totes, bar soaps from an organic farm in New Mexico and packets of Japanese coffee, to name a few.

The main course: Aloha Sunday Supply Co. (pictured left)

131 Hekili St., Kailua

The main course of any new-shop array has got to be the ultra-fresh Aloha Sunday outpost in Kailua. The homegrown brand of hella-sharp, contemporary aloha shirts and tailored weekend wear has a boutique in California but brought the Island style back to the rock in February of this year. The slick store’s collection of goods also includes graphic tees and totes from the more casual Shoots USA brand, as well as a hodgepodge of curiosities (a horn cup and juniper soaps here, a slingshot there) to fit in the discerning local boy’s manly-chic home. And talk about tasty: Snag some all-natural shave ice from The Local Hawai‘i in the store.

The dessert: No. 808

66-165 Kamehameha Hwy, Hale‘iwa

You’ll have to travel up to Hale‘iwa to shop at this baby but, trust us, you’ll get your just desserts in the end. Brought to you by some of the team behind quintessential surf brand Quality Peoples, this boutique (in the old Guava Shop space) is stuffed with effortlessly cool, beach-ready goodies, including distressed surf tees, leather wrap bracelets with anchor and fish-hook charms, Surf Bazaar dresses, Malia Jones swimwear and even a selection of super-hip kids’ clothes and a vintage encyclopedia set of The Ocean World by Jacque Cousteau from the ’70s.