The Tehani Pareo - Tahitian Design Beachwear and More

After months of design work and production, our Tehani design is finally here. Putting together a Tahitian Pareo has paid off. We've got a great design and I think our customers, old and new, will love it. We're offering it in our classic pareo, mini pareo, pareo set, and fabric by-the-yard. It's a soft fabric - 100% cotton broadcloth. This is a change from our Heiva Hibiscus fabric. It's lighter and drapes more freely. The weight is lighter and softer. It has a feel between the high end rayon and our heavy duty cotton sheeting.

The Tehani Pareo is being offered in five great colors - Arii Red, Mango Orange, Yellow Bounty, Green Tiare, and Poehere Blue. Full size pareos are $14, mini pareos are $7.50, pareo sets (one each of full size and mini pareos) are $21 and fabric by-the-yard is $6 and up.

The timing is perfect. With summer rapidly approaching, it's easy to see that this pareo will fit in perfectly with your beach activities, casual get togethers and those lazy days in the house, yard and wherever comfort is a priority.

The new Tahitian pareo - Tehani will be available starting Monday, April 7, 2008 exclusively online at our website - Black Pearl Designs. Pre orders will be available shortly online.

Putting together a Tahitian pareo design, Part VI

Tweaking... twiddling my thumbs... yawning. That's what I feel like when I think about our new pareo design. This entry is going to be more thoughts than straight information. It's been 3, count them, 3 months since our manufacturer got our design and put in motion our product (6 months total). It's somewhat nerve racking to think of a sizeable portion of our budget going into the production of this single pareo design and waiting so long for it to become a reality.

After getting the first strike off, we were a bit nervous. The colors were all off (except the blue colorway). The red colorway was the worst. Yellow and orange were also bad. As this is our first experience with Japanese manufacturers, we expected it to go much more smoothly. When we asked for a second strike off, the company initially said no. I couldn't accept this and said so. Eventually, they grudgingly agreed to do the second strike off. Interesting, since they obviously saw my dissatisfaction and I had been a frequent customer. Colors are so important on this product.

One way they could have avoided this problem is to use pantone colors. It seems so unimaginable that the company would not use this proven color management system. But after meeting in their offices many times, it's not so surprising, though disappointing, that they don't use this standard. If it weren't that they only have one other competitor, they would probably be in trouble by now for not updating their operations.

But I digress. In 3 weeks (cross your fingers) we will introducing our new Tehani Pareo and fabric. After looking at it so many times this past 6 months (that's how long we've been working on this with the manufacturer) there are so many other things we've worked on in between and ideas for the motif elements we've planned. The appeal is great and the color variety is very welcome.

If everything goes well (or at least close) we're looking to reprint in new colors or create a new Maori print (just thinking out loud) later this year.