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Apr 22
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West Kauaʻi, Where Locals Preserve the Island’s Soul
by Bianca Wagner·April 21, 2025
Fonda’s Daughter (Retail)
Nestled next to Hanapēpē’s Hawaiian Congregational Church, Fonda’s Daughter co-founders Natalie Fonda and her husband Kekoa Seward have opened a Hawaiiana vintage store that feels like stepping back in time. The extensive curation put into this collection of items — from mu’umu’u to aloha shirts to old music records — is so clearly a labor of love, one can’t help but be drawn in by what Fonda describes as an “organized treasure hunt.” At Fonda’s Daughter, Fonda and Seward specialize in showcasing and preserving vintage pieces, often rescuing items that might otherwise be thrown away, ensuring that a piece of history lives on.
Growing up on O‘ahu, in the windward community of Ka‘a‘awa in the 1990s, Fonda was raised with the love of all things vintage. Her father, Fulvio Fonda, moved their family to Hawai‘i from the Bay Area in her early childhood. Being raised by a vintage dealer with a passion for aloha shirts meant that as a little girl she would tag along every weekend to the Aloha Stadium swap meet, a formative experience that shaped her deep connection to vintage Hawaiiana culture and inspired the shop’s name, Fonda’s Daughter. As an adult, Fonda continues to travel to O‘ahu every Sunday, joining her father to search for exciting finds in a ritual that demonstrates the intergenerational labor of love that underlies the heart of the shop’s endeavor.
Scattered around the little shop, one will find handwritten signs that designate each rack with the item’s name in ‘ōlelo Hawai‘i, a handmade touch from Seward’s mother, who can often be found lei-making out front on Hanapēpē Friday Art Nights, to imbue the space with a sense of Hawaiian identity. “Any opportunity we have to teach visitors the history and culture, it’s important,” Fonda says. “I think we have a responsibility to do that. I wasn’t born here, but I was raised here from the time I was 5-years-old and my husband’s family goes back generations. My daughter is part-Hawaiian. I believe we have a duty to teach her the history as well.”
For visitors, the shop provides an opportunity to move beyond surface-level experiences of Hawai‘i. Fonda and Seward encourage tourists to immerse themselves, learn about local perspectives, and connect with the island’s true essence. For locals, it’s a nostalgic dive into our recent past, delighting local customers young and old who find beautifully maintained vintage mu‘umu‘u or a graphic T-shirt that reminds them of the one their uncle used to wear. Fonda is committed to keeping prices reasonable so locals can continue to shop hvere. “I know the history and the story that comes with a mu’u mu’u or an aloha shirt,’ she says. “Everything has a memory behind it and I think that’s most important. Sometimes I have people coming in and saying, ‘Oh I wish I had saved a bunch of my grandma’s things,’ and seeing their faces light up when they pull an item and go, ‘Oh my gosh, I see my grandma or my grandpa in this…’ They bring so many good memories with them.”
