The Hawaiian Collection: 70s, Peasant, Lovely

At some point in Violet Folklore's past I have posted something somewhere online about my love for 70s Hawaiian peasant dresses.

I'm thinking you feel the same way about these carefree relics of simpler days gone by.

And, like me, picture a dark-skinned earth mama puttering barefoot around her yard in a dress just like these gathering coconuts and mangoes and grinding taro and kava kava roots for an upcoming celebration.

When I came across these dresses in another Etsy shop recently I quickly hearted all of them.

And a few days later received a message from the shop owner. She had gotten all of the dresses from the estate of a friend who had recently passed on. But she and her husband were leaving Hawaii to move to the Middle East soon (I know, really?) and she needed to liquidate her stock. Would I be interested in purchasing them?

Her asking price was a little high, and it was hard to fully ascertain the quality of the dresses as they hung lifelessly on mannequins in the glaring mid-day sun. But I saw the potential. Oh yes, I saw the potential. So we haggled for a bit (I'm getting pretty good at that) and before long they arrived at my door step, all packaged up with pretty tropical leaves.

The ending of this epic tale has now passed into legend, as I begin to list these gorgeous dresses in my shop tonight...

Thanks to Suuzi's hella awesome husband Spencer Seim for taking these photos!