Student fashion designer Janessa Cajudoy grew up on Hawaii’s island of Maui immersed in its culture and traditions. When she began planning her senior collection at New York state’s Marist University, thousands of miles from home, she skipped past the striking tropical print beachwear and flowy muumuus typically associated with island living. She focused instead on the everyday workwear that had been worn by her family and many others who tended the island’s pineapple fields and sugar cane plantations. Those traditional functional garments hold her interest and are what sparked ideas for her designs.
“The concept is really meaningful to me and what I am most proud of,” Janessa says about her Talk Story collection.
She also incorporated sustainability and zero-waste concepts. The execution of her design ideas and her garment sewing won her the Threads 2025 award to a Marist fashion program student. Threads’ editors found Janessa’s cohesive collection exhibited an effort to learn how to handle denim mindfully. Further, her application of zero-waste concepts to four garments included patternwork and construction techniques that enabled her to produce the least possible waste via cutting and sewing. Her sewing, especially the topstitching, was clean, and she worked successfully with a range of fabrics. 
Janessa’s homage to Hawaiian workwear is made up of a hooded denim jumpsuit, lined denim jacket, high-waisted trousers, denim shorts, ruffled vest, skort, button-front crop shirt, machine-embroidered knit T-shirt, and loose-fitting dress. Her looks were part of Marist’s 39th Silver Needle Runway show in May 2025 in Poughkeepsie, New York. The show, conceived and run by students in the university’s fashion program, highlights the work of senior class designers.
Janessa says she is thankful for and humbled by the award. “I’ve been sewing forever, I think since I was about 10, and to get an award is very gratifying.”
A Workwear Jumpsuit
She tackled the most challenging garment in her collection first—the jumpsuit. Its four-piece hood was based on the hats worn by Japanese women, as they worked in Hawaiian pineapple fields. The denim piece also features a hidden bodice placket, fly-front zipper, and plenty of snaps and rivets. The jumpsuit was intended to be oversized, “but my model was swimming in it, so that’s when the elastic waistband came in for fittings and how the tabs got there,” Janessa explains. “Originally, the tabs were going to make pleats in the front, but after washing (the jumpsuit), it shrunk enough that the tabs became a garment detail.”
Janessa machine-embroidered a Hawaiian quilting motif on the front tabs, modified from a pattern passed down by her aunt. The pineapple-themed pattern repeats throughout the collection; it is even engraved into pineapple leather patches. Plus, a single corner of the motif became a machine-topstitched detail on each back patch pocket.
Honoring Hawaiian Tradition
All the collection pieces except the lined jacket were garment-washed. “I really wanted (them) to be lived in, and have all the drag effects on the seaming,” to appear faded, she says. “I wanted it (the collection) to feel vintage.” She worked with a denim washhouse to achieve the look.
Creating the historically based collection required extensive research, even before starting the jumpsuit. “I do not want to culturally appropriate.” Janessa says. “I am not Hawaiian, but I am from Hawaii. I always want to do it right.”
She studied black-and-white images of field workers in Hawaii. “I would literally take inspiration from what they were wearing in that picture,” she explains. “From that picture, I would research what fabrics they were, why they would use that, what was the purpose.”
Workwear Fabric Choices
The result: Two workwear cotton fabrics took center stage in Janessa’s collection, denim and a yarn-dyed woven twill called palaka. The palaka is a durable woven check material from which jackets and shirts were made for field workers. It plays an important role in Hawaiian history.
Denim and palaka tied in with Janessa’s goal of creating “wearable and fun” closet essentials while honoring Hawaiian tradition.
Marist Fashion Merchandising Professor Anthony Millero connected Janessa with Blueprint Denim Washhouse in Jersey City, New Jersey, to help her create the lived-in denim for her collection.
“There were small details into the washing that I didn’t even think of until talking to them,” Janessa admits. Eventually, she toured the washhouse, meeting every worker and poring over their sample archive. She learned about whisker design—intentional wearing creases; how to choose wash color; and other effects, such as sun bleaching. She also was guided in choosing a wash for her wide-leg, pleated trousers. The difficult-to-sew shiny Tencel chambray fabric needed a simpler wash than the heavyweight denim of her other garments, she says, but she ended up with the soft, matte finish she wanted.
Working with the small batch manufacturing washhouse was a college course in itself, but Janessa was pleased with all the results.
Zero-Waste Advice
Her zero-waste patternwork was one of the most challenging aspects of creating the collection. She reviewed Japanese pattern books provided by Marist Fashion Design Professor Jamie Perillo, invested in zero-waste patterns, and consulted Zero Waste Patterns by Birgitta Helmersson (Quadrille, 2023).
Janessa’s approach was also informed by Anna Kahalekulu, a designer of clothing, accessories and home goods who owns a studio on Maui. “She was my mentor and taught me how to produce clothing while also being conscious of fabric consumption, with repurposing fabric scraps,” Janessa says.
Zero-Waste Dress
The zero-waste dress in Janessa’s collection started out as a denim frock with beautiful pleats, similar to the eight pleats in her high-waisted, wide-leg chambray trousers.
But Janessa decided it was just too much denim for the collection and replaced it with the plaid palaka.
“I had to repattern everything to a different width of fabric,” she remembers. The challenge did not end there, as the palaka draped differently and would not hold the pleats. She resisted replacing them with an elastic waistband. Another issue was that the dress looked tight on her model. Janessa enlarged the silhouette.
After three weeks of repeated fittings, Janessa acquiesced and installed the elasticized waistband.
The model responded with a smile, Janessa says, and that’s when she knew it was the right solution for the palaka dress.
More Zero-Waste Designs
The crop top, ruffled vest, and lined denim jacket also were zero-waste creations. Janessa says her draping classes at Marist and her early sewing experience of making bags especially helped her visualize and draft the zero-waste patterns. The boxy silhouettes required mostly straight seams, simplifying the commitment to the zero-waste concept. Shoulder seams, however, needed to conform to the body’s curves. This created triangular seam allowances at each shoulder seam that Janessa topstitched and turned into a design detail.
Another zero-waste solution was to repurpose the cutouts from the back neckline of the dress and crop top. Janessa turned them into back tags for those pieces.
She also transformed fabric scraps from the denim garments into fabric leis.
Clean-finished interiors and seam allowances with consistent widths were important to Janessa, so they were considered during the draping and patternwork, as on the ruffled vest.
Most seams and edges were turned and topstitched, though the lined denim jacket’s edges were serged.
A Budding Designer and Seamstress
Janessa marvels at how far she’s come. At first, she did not want to learn how to sew. Then there was a class. “My mom forced me to do it. I don’t know why I was so reluctant. I think it was a summer course, and I think it was something to get me out of the house,” she says. The sewing bug took hold, and when she turned 16, she began working at Sew Special Maui, the same shop where she took that first sewing class and then kept going back. She credits the store staff with teaching her all she knows about sewing.
Now the Marist fashion program graduate is excited to continue refining her zero-waste patterns and hopes to digitize and sell them. Is there another zero-waste pattern in her future? Maybe pants or a skirt, she muses.
Photos: (runway) @DanielParkerPhotography, courtesy of Marist University; (all others, except where noted) courtesy of Janessa Cajudoy.
Threads Recommended Products
Threads receives a commission for items purchased through links on this site, including Amazon Associates and other affiliate advertising programs.
Style Arc, Hendrix Coat
Butterick, Misses’ Shirts and Shorts 6946 and 6947
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this whole line! What great functional, casual clothes! I want patterns for these immediately!
So glad you enjoyed it!
Every thing is so lovely! I want the pattern for the pants and the jumpsuit STAT! Great job!
I appreciate this deeply!!!
Wearable, livable. Great collection!
Thank you so much! This is exactly what I wanted people to see a collection you can picture yourself wearing!