Because Aunty doesn’t have tv service, she hasn’t watched Project Runway, even though her friends have raved about it and insisted that she get with it.

Meanwhile, the Hawaii Stitchery and Fibre Arts Guild that Aunty used to belong to (it was our once a month opportunity to dress up) had Kini Zamora as the guest speaker/artist on January 4, 2017.  That was last night, and Aunty and friends went to a packed room of Kini admirers.

Who is Kini Zamora?  He was a semi-finalist in season 14 of Project Runway and the fashionista favorite, born and raised in Hawaii, learned to sew from his aunty who learned from her father (a seamster), then went on to attend Honolulu Community College’s fashion design program.  After graduating and working here and there, he went to the prestigious New York Fashion Institute, scrimping, saving and working his way through the school program.

He applied to be a contestant on Project Runway 6 times before he was finally given the fateful acceptance to be a part of the show.  Very soon after,  a whirlwind 6 weeks of creating, filming, bonding with fellow contestants and challenges ensued, and he just missed the top spot by a few hairs of opinion.

Rather than joining top design companies or working in the big fashion cities, Kini decided to bring his knowledge and reputation back to Hawaii, to revive Hawaii’s style and place of distinction as a source of fashion, and to be home.  He gives much of his time to local causes and has opened a co-op place of creativity with up and coming designers as well as designing and printing his own line of fabric, upscale fashion collections, and custom design work.

On top of all that, Kini Zamora is SUCH a wonderful, humble, for real nice young man.  So real.

Now Aunty needs to go searching for YouTube videos of Project Runway and see what Kini did and join his many fans in applauding him, for he represented Hawaii with aloha and genius, and he continues to shine from Waianae to Kaimuki, and beyond.