To Kaleʻa Raymond, kapa is something to be worn, lived in and loved.
“It is a reverent thing to have a piece of kapa,” says Raymond, owner of Laʻahana Creations, which sells handcrafted, wearable kapa accessories. “But a lot of Kānaka Hawaiʻi, when they receive a piece of kapa, or you know, they make a piece of kapa, it goes on the wall, or it goes into a cabinet. It’s loved and it’s precious, but it’s not used, right?”
Raymond, who learned kapa-making from her mother, kapa practitioner and teacher Lisa Schattenburg-Raymond, wanted to change that. “I wanted to start doing things where people could wear kapa again,” she said.
Her vision was to make wearable kapa pieces, so she started by making hat bands in 2021 and then earrings in 2022. “I’m still expanding the things that I make,” Raymond said, “but it’s pieces that people can wear every day.”
Each hat band features a uniquely patterned piece of kapa, set on felt and secured to the hat with a ribbon or Velcro. She offers the hat bands as custom orders, allowing her to tailor each one to the individual hat. The earrings come in different colors in wire frames, from circles to crescent moons to triangles to diamond shapes — each pair also uniquely patterned using native dyes.
Raymond is now experimenting with other kinds of products, such as belts, bracelets and necklaces, but wants to make sure that they stay affordable and wearable. “Everything that I make, I wear-test. I make sure that they’re going to hold up,” she says. One day, she would really like to add a lei hulu-style of kapa adornment.
Born and raised on Maui, Raymond attended a Hawaiian immersion school before earning a degree from UH Mānoa with a focus in costume design. She moved to California and lived there for seven years to pursue a career in costuming but felt a longing to return to Maui in 2019. It wasn’t until she moved back that she reconnected with kapa and found herself drawn to it.
“The pandemic was a really unfortunate thing for many, but it was really fortuitous for me because being with my parents, and with my mom in particular, she gave me a deep dive into kapa,” Raymond said with a laugh, amused by the memory. “I did the full immersion experience with my mother. And I’m very grateful for that and I’m still learning.”
The name of her business, Laʻahana Creations, is in reference to a moʻolelo about two sisters who are kapa makers. Lauhuʻiki is the one who is knowledgeable in harvesting and processing, while Laʻahana is skilled in decorating.
“When I first heard that story, and I was first starting on my kapa journey, I realized that Lauhuʻiki and Laʻahana are my mom and I,” she smiled, noting that her mom has the green thumb while she has a passion for art.
To make the kapa pieces, she and her mom grow, harvest, and process the wauke (paper mulberry) themselves.
“My mother and I, when we’re making kapa, especially the watermarked pieces, we usually tend to do large sheets instead of just a small piece, and that can take between 20 to 30 hours of beating,” Raymond said.
“We only do it in four-hour periods, otherwise your body just hurts.” It takes focus, she explains, as they must listen and watch what they’re doing to move the fibers over.
She uses traditional dyes to print the kapa patterns, harvesting plants and materials sustainably. “I make my own ink in a traditional way. I use all handmade ohe kapala (bamboo stamps) from Nalu Andrade of Nā Maka Kahiko. He hand-carves all my ohe kapala,” Raymond said.
Because the kapa is delicate, she fully encases all the earrings in resin to protect them. The resin is see-through and preserves the kapa for longer wear.
Raymond has a strong passion for kapa making, and dreams of there one day being “a hui of kapa makers together to make a 10-layer, 12-foot-long hula pāʻū and have somebody perform in it,” she said.
“With our growing connection back to our ancestors, we’re having more men wearing malo, but we don’t have a lot of women wearing pāʻū,” referring to history books about hula dancers and the kapa pieces that were worn.
While that may be her lifetime goal, for now she would like to see more people making and wearing kapa — and that’s what she’s working toward through her business.
This article is reprinted with permission from Christine Hitt, “Kapa, Ready to Wear," OHA's Ka Wai Ola newspaper, November 2025, Vol. 42 No. 11. Read more at kawaiola.news.
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