Many feel the muumuu is an endangered species

Designer Mamo Howell says pants doomed the loose-fitting garment

By Burl Burlingame

POSTED: 01:30 a.m. HST, Aug 13, 2009

There was a time in Hawaii when, as if they had been assigned uniforms, every elementary-school teacher and bank teller wore a muumuu. Every day.

Those every-days are long past. The muumuu or mu'umu'u or "Mother Hubbard" or whatever you like to call it might be one of Hawaii's endangered species.Think. When was the last time you saw one that wasn't on Auntie?Let define terms. The muumuu is the full-length, flowing A-line dress that falls from the yoke and shoulder, generally brightly colored, and invented by the missionaries to allow Hawaiian women freedom of movement without showing any skin.

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My grandma (2nd from right), in her holoku at church. The holoku eventually morphed into the much more popular muumuu.