Shari Saiki

Wednesday - July 21, 2005
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Award-winning interior designer Shari Saiki opens the doors of her new furniture and accessory store — Mesh — this week.

Located at Dole Cannery Square, across from Costco and Home Depot in Iwilei, Mesh features home furnishings categorized as “contemporary Pacifica, modern elegance, tropical immersion and transitional fusion designs.”

“The idea of the store was really a response to many calls that we had been getting through the years in our interior design business,” says Saiki, who appeared on the cover of MidWeek in December 2002. “We do a lot of model homes, and a lot of people walk through the homes, and they call us because they’re interested in a piece or two of furniture that they see.”

In the last couple of years, Saiki says her interior design business, Shari Saiki Design Studios, located at Kakaako, has been booming. Her staff has grown from four to seven, and sales have increased.

“Internally we’ve doubled our staff in order to accommodate the amount of calls and the work that we were getting that we couldn’t previously take,” explains Saiki. “We’ve been doing a lot of work on the Neighbor Islands, on Maui and the Big Island. We’ve been doing a lot of models there, and working with Stanford Carr Development and Castle & Cooke.

“Our business is mainly residential or residential model homes, about 80 or 90 percent of it, and the other 10 or 20 percent of it is a little bit of corporate work and we also have a small venture in hospitality.”

At Mesh, Saiki will be responsible for merchandising and selecting new products. Her husband, Bryan Kitashima, will be running the store. And they’ve hired Nicci Lee as store manager.

“My personal life is my business life,” admits Saiki. “We have so much going on right now, and we’re happy to be doing what we’re doing right now. We also have a 3-and-a-half year old, Lucca, and he keeps us very busy too.”

As for her secret to success? It’s passion.

“I think we’re all doing what we love, and when you’re doing what you love you put a lot more into it,” she says. “You put your heart and soul into it, and usually when you do that good things come of it.”