Image Not Available
for Ming's Inc.
Ming's Inc.
Honolulu, 1938 - 1999
Person TypeInstitution
BiographyThe popularity of island motifs in Hawai'i decorative arts extended to jewelry locally designed and retailed by fine Hawai'i gift shops including S. & G. Gump and Company, Grossman-Moody, Ltd., and Ming's Inc. Jewelry designer Wook Moon opened Ming's Inc. in Honolulu during the 1940s and retailed pins, earrings, necklaces, cufflinks, and other pieces created in silver and ivory according to his designs inspired by Polynesia and Asia. Floral motifs such as orchid, plumeria, pïkake, and hibiscus blossoms were popular as were cultural motifs such as helmets, warrior figures, “tikis,” poi pounders, and feather capes. During its heyday Ming's had stores on the mainland in cities including Atlanta, San Francisco, Denver, Dallas, New York, Miami, and Houston. The stores slowly closed from the 1960s through the 1980s, with the Honolulu store, the last branch to remain open, shutting it doors in 1999. Ming's jewelry was enjoyed in the middle decades of the twentieth century by island residents and visitors just as it is today by collectors seeking expressions of the exoticism and beauty of Hawai'i.