It wasn't long until Local Motion became a familiar name in surfing circles worldwide, reaching as far as Brazil and later Japan. Design and development, however, would remain true its roots and stay in Hawaii. Production moved from Hawaii to California and later overseas as the brand began to grow.
LOCAL MOTION BOARDSHORTS SERIES
The American surf-market was exploding, and he jumped at the opportunity by launching a series of original boardshorts, t-shirts, and aloha shirts that became the Local Motion brand. He even later went on to helm sister brands Hawaiian Style and Kahala Sportswear. Its founder, Hawaiian native Robert "Rob" Burns, was a well known surfboard shaper and was solely responsible for all design, merchandising, sales and marketing of the the company in its heyday.
When he got my list he said, “this is will be a project we will do together – will be by Hope and Holmes.Local Motion first opened it's doors in 1977: a small 500 square foot surf shop in Kailua, Oahu in Hawaii. I gave him a long list of the who’s who in the industry, all the companies he would want to talk to. Renaissance Man, Big Wave Canoe Surf Pioneer, Author of the definitive book on Outrigger Canoes, Tommy Holmes, asked me one day to help him define what should be included in a book on Aloha Shirts that he was ready to embark on. Still have one of Patagonia’s original quarter page ads, where the copy read, “Uncommon clothes For Spirited People.” These mainland companies definitely showed us what was being done creatively away from our shores. We were inspired by 2 companies of that era, Esprit and a non-fashion company, Patagonia. For ads, brochures, lookbooks and tradeshow booths we worked with Darrell Wong, Jeff Hornbaker, Linny Morris Cunningham, Horst Stanzy, Dana Edmunds, John Russell, Mike Wagner and JOSS. To tell our story we worked with some great photographers over the years.
My Dad once told me, “you really are in the business of selling art.” He was right, great art on shirts sold well. Ito, who enabled us to source the best quality fabrications, printing and additional sources for textile art. There we worked with the finest textile companies in Japan, Marubeni, Kurabo and C. Von Hamm and Ohana Fabrics who introduced us to the Textile world in Japan. We worked with great textile converters here in Honolulu, G. I was not convinced His customers, the predominately blue-ish haired resort ladies needed these garments It was difficult for me to relate to his customers. He was selling ladies, missy resort wear with polyester, pongee and acrylic fabrications. When I was about to continue on to college in the early 1970’s, my Dad asked me to come and work for him, as he needed help with sales. By the time I was a teenager, I’d be breaking down fabric cartons from Japan, carrying many thousands of yards of fabric in a day on my shoulders to our second story cutting room. We would all go to work together as they started their company and I made forts with boxes in the shipping room. My Dad wore great bold-printed shirts everyday and he special ordered a batch of them for me every year once I was in school. We lived in a small cottage in Waikiki a few blocks from the beach. In 1953 my Mom and Dad bought a small garment factory, the same year I was born. After the war my father stayed in Hawaii and started selling fabric to the growing community of clothing manufacturers.
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