HILUXURY – Hawaii Luxury Magazine

Beachwear and high fashion meet at the Four Seasons Hualalai boutique

To look at Seaside Luxe today, you’d never guess that a little more than a year ago, it began with a converted office space and an inspired experiment to bring a new kind of retail experience to the Four Seasons Hualalai Resort.

“It was so successful, we were able to expand it into a casual women’s and men’s boutique, a jewelry boutique and one high-end store,” says creative director Eric Lopez. “They all serve the same customer, but with a different end use.”

Where the casual store focuses on daily-wear beach apparel, on the high end, Seaside Luxe presents designer lines such as Missoni, Pucci and Derek Lam, plus an eclectic mix of collections by emerging international designers, and accessories and interior furnishings crafted by artists from all over the world.

From the start, Lopez and his partners were ambitious, tapping designers for exclusive merchandise to suit Hualalai’s sophisticated clientele.

“These are people who travel all over the world, they’ve seen everything,” he says. “We wanted to have a mix of designers they could identify with, but also show them something they don’t expect. We wanted to create a kind of experience that they’d never seen before.”

“Project Wanderlust” was born, enlisting an international buyer who now scours the globe “to seek out the designers of the moment,” Lopez says.

In Jaipur, India, they formed a partnership with another high-end boutique, Hot Pink, as well as eighth-generation jewelers Gem Palace to create an exclusive line of jewelry.

Closer to home, they’ve formed creative partnerships with designers such as Gregory Parkinson, James Perse and Irene Neuwirth.

Lopez admits that they hit a few closed doors in the beginning, but it didn’t make sense to carry designers’ fall/winter collections, and they felt compelled to request designs better-suited to a warm Hawaii winter.

“We were never a part of the fashion world, but we went to the top to see what would happen,” Lopez says. “A major house wouldn’t work with you until you’ve proven yourself to them, but once we started rolling, designers became interested in working with us.

“It’s a small world in fashion, so once people start talking, everyone starts talking. It’s become quite a thing.”

Seaside Luxe is in the Four Seasons Hualalai Resort on the Big Island. Call 808-325-4765.