Native Creative: Farida Ong of Evening Invitation

February 28, 2011

Farida: I was messing around and I made this lil bag out of rabbit fur…Let me know ur thoughts :)

Me: Cute! How big is it?

Farida: It’s teeny abt 10 in width and 6 in height…

March 1, 2011

Farida: Grey wabbit

Me: I love it in grey!

March 2, 2011

Farida: I added on etsy today lol crossed fingers

Me: Ooh! Fishloaves? I’ll search for you!

Farida: Oh no I called the line Evening Invitation

And this is how I first learned of Evening Invitation – through a series of text messages over the span of three days :P

Farida Ong is just amazing like that. I won’t see the girl for a week, and in those seven days she’ll tell me she’s worked as a stylist on an ad hoc photoshoot with some of Hawaii’s most talented designers, photographers, and models…or created an entire lookbook for a friend who wanted to try a new style of dress…or as in this case, designed and crafted her very own rabbit handbag line.

Indeed the more you get to know her, the more you realize that there is a fashion mastermind behind Farida's unassuming demeanor. In her early twenties, Farida worked for many years in New York's fashion industry, at companies such as Fendi and Audemars Piguet. After moving back to Hawaii in late 2009, she opened a fashion and vintage wares boutique at Samsung Plaza called Fishloaves. When her lease was up, Farida took the shop online, where you can currently find her at www.fishloavesinc.com. And it was only a few months after establishing Fishloaves' online home when she began working on her Evening Invitation project.

I was originally going to write that "Farida's most recent endeavor is creating five new Evening Invitation handbags to be featured in Matt Bruening's upcoming Summer 2011 fashion show."  But I've recently come to find out that she's also making a variety of unisex jewelry pieces for the show, which will be added to the Evening Invitation line. (See, what'd I tell you about this girl being amazing!)

Momoko Metzker in a MB jumpsuit w/ EI "Cloak & Dagger" bag (via Farida's iPhone)

Be sure to keep up with Farida and Evening Invitation at the Matt Bruening and Andy South Summer 2011 Fashion Show, this Friday at Nextdoor. The event will also be feature Alt/Air, Clones of the Queen, and Sicktyte performing live. You can get more info and purchase tickets at the Nextdoor website.