About / Moʻolelo

OUR STORY

Aloha mai! My name is Zoe P-Li and I am the designer and founder of Selective HA. I am also a  teacher and progressive educator.

I created Selective HA in 2019 while in fashion school at Honolulu Community College with a vision to eventually create my own locally-based, sustainable fashion label here in Hawaii. My first product was face masks, a year before pandemic, and as one of the few mask makers in the country at the start of 2020, we quickly found ourselves on an unexpected, accelerated journey through local manufacturing. 

In 2023 I re-started designing again beyond masks - getting out ideas that had been inside my mind and heart for a while. Starting with the Aunties Collection, I wanted to make garments that celebrate (some of) the folks that I believe will save the world -- that do it everyday. Along with these collections, my slow-sewn upcycled pieces are where I get to create freely as I would all the time if the world weren't run by money. They are inspired, one of a kind pieces, made mostly if not entirely from fashion waste. They are hope for a new world made visible, and I believe upcycled fashion is therefore true luxury.

Our baby and toddler wetsuits came from a long-held dream to design wetsuits, and then an immediate need to keep our baby daughter warm and feeling good in the ocean. My little and I have put these wetsuits through the ringer - from varying water and temp conditions, to an assortment of messes and spills - and I'm very proud to have a refined product built for accompanying the earliest years of life in the water. I am also very proud of our partnership with Yamamoto Corporation, and our decision to exclusively use their neoprene. Yamamoto neoprene is made in Japan using 100% renewable energy and entirely sourced from Japanese limestone. It is rare to find a company of such quality, integrity and innovation today.

Selective HA allows me to keep designing and my teaching allows the business to circumvent the pressures of scaling. Both designing and teaching give my life meaning and underscore our human and planet's interconnectedness. For me, the point is to leave this place thriving for our children's children. I am grateful that we have stayed small and grateful to you for checking us out!

‘O Hawai‘i ke kahua o ka ho‘ona‘auao. Hawai‘i is the foundation of our learning!

Me ke aloha,

Aunty Zoe

OUR WETSUITS

Yamamoto neoprene is made in Japan using 100% renewable energy and entirely sourced from Japanese limestone. The industry standard for most of the big surf brands is "no solvents" used in the neoprene, but Yamamoto takes health/safety a step further by using cooking-grade vegetable oiler as its filler. A lot of brands are using other limestone-based (non-petroleum) neoprenes marked as "ecoprene" but Yamamoto is the only manufacturer truly dedicated to sustainable sourcing and production of its limestone. Yamamoto neoprene also has been shown to last up to 60x longer than other neoprenes, and represents maximum use cycle for the industry. Our batches are also extremely small, such that we aim to sell every single piece from every single batch and keep it in a circular system through our Wetsuit Buyback Program.