By Eric Langlois
Hawai’i is the youngest state in the United States, only being admitted to statehood in 1959. Well before that date though, Hawai’i had significant relations with the United States, especially in the realms of culture and clothing. Perhaps its most significant cultural and economic export is the Hawaiian shirt, also known as the aloha shirt.
Hawai’i’s position in the Pacific Ocean made it a popular stopover point for sailors from the United States, who would re-provision their ships on the way to the markets of Asia or the whaling grounds of the Gulf of Alaska. It was a sovereign nation until the overthrow of the Hawaiian Royal Family via an armed coup in 1893, backed by American businessmen and diplomats. The new Republic of Hawai’i presented itself to the US government as a ready-made US territory, but the Cleveland administration chose not to take control of the country. However, when the US seized the Philippines and Guam from Spain in 1898, Hawai’i’s location as a strategic coaling station for US ships travelling to these new possessions gave proponents of Hawaiian annexation more ammunition for their cause, and Hawai’i was made a US territory in 1900.
Hawai’i’s new status as a possession of the United States naturally led to increased travel between the islands and the mainland. Increased industrialization of Hawai’i’s industries like fruit, sugar, and ranching, as well as the buildup of American military bases, meant that Hawai’i began to hold a greater significance in American culture. Stories of travel to Pacific islands appeared more and more in novels and films, and by the mid-1930s there was a boom in sales for tropical themed items, usually with the Hawaiian greeting “Aloha” in the name. Most prominent among these was the aloha shirt.
Hawai’i’s position in the middle of the Pacific has meant that its culture has absorbed styles from many different sources. In the 19th century, British and American sailors shipped cotton cloth in blue and white check patterns to Hawai’i, where this tough, breathable material was adopted as a workwear material known as palaka cloth. Influenced by the loose-fitting Filipino barong tagalog shirt, these palaka shirts were cut with a hem that ran straight across and was notched at the sides, designed to be worn untucked. The palaka was a ubiquitous garment in the Hawaiian Islands by the early 20th Century, but it was a laborer’s shirt, worn by farmers and paniolos – Hawaiian cowboys. There was an opening in the market for a dressier version, and two different companies pounced on it.
As with a lot of inventions, the true originator of the aloha shirt is contested. In the 1920s or 30s, a store named “Musa-Shiya, the Shirtmaker,” owned by Koichiro Miyamoto, began selling shirts made from colorful material imported from Japan. Around the same time, “King Smith Clothiers and Dry Goods” owned by Ellery Chun sold shirts of a similar design. A newspaper ad for Musa-Shira in 1935 is the first known written example of these shirts being sold as “aloha shirts,” although it is claimed that Chun’s store was already using the name in window displays two years before. In 1937, Ellery Chun gained the trademark to the name “aloha shirt” for twenty years, but by that time the industry had exploded and many other manufacturers were selling the same style.
The traditional aloha shirt is a short sleeve shirt in the style of the palaka, with a straight hem and notched sides. It is made in a wide, straight cut to maximize airflow, with a soft, one piece collar that is designed to lie flat and be worn open – a style generally known as a camp collar today. It usually has one breast pocket, and a mark of quality for aloha shirts is the pattern matching on the pocket: ideally, the pattern on the breast pocket should be perfectly aligned within the pattern of the shirt so that it is almost invisible. The print styles can vary significantly, even among traditional aloha shirts. Shirts made with cloth produced in Hawai’i tended to have tropical foliage and flowers in muted colors, while shirts made from imported Japanese cloth might have designs like flying cranes and Mount Fuji which are classically Japanese.
Throughout the Second World War, many thousands of people transited through Hawai’i en route to the Pacific Theater, boosting the aloha shirt’s profile. A good portion bought aloha shirts for off-duty use, and those shirts made their way home, becoming a friendly reminder of a not-so-friendly time. Tiki Culture, a stylized celebration of an imagined Pan-Pacific island way of life, also boomed in the post-war years, increasing the market for aloha wear. New manufacturers like Shaheen, founded in 1948, and Reyn Spooner and Tori Richard, both founded in 1956, sprang up to fill this market. Shaheen became famous for modernized, stylish aloha prints such as the one worn by Elvis on the album cover for Blue Hawaii.
Hawaiian statehood did not slow down interest in aloha shirts. Besides Blue Hawaii, many other films and television shows including Hawaii Five-O and Magnum P.I. were set and shot in Hawai’i, keeping the state’s tropical style in the public eye. In the late 40s, the Honolulu Chamber of Commerce began championing the aloha shirt as summer business wear. The Aloha Festival, a celebration of Hawaiian culture taking place in October, revived interest in traditional Hawaiian ways of life and boosted demand for aloha wear. In 1966, Aloha Friday was established, allowing businessmen in Hawai’i to wear aloha shirts to work instead of standard business attire. Aloha Friday would lead directly to the adoption of Casual Friday in most workplaces by the 1990s.
While interest in Tiki Culture and, by extension, aloha wear fell off in the 1980s and 90s, it began to make a return by the turn of the 21st century. Due to influences as varied as retro car culture, the craft cocktail movement, and Spongebob Squarepants, aloha shirts began their climb back into relevance on the mainland. Today, with the boom in resort wear among clothing manufacturers, aloha shirts continue to appear on “must-have” lists from menswear publications every summer. Big Hawaiian manufacturers like Reyn Spooner, Tori Richard, and Hilo Hattie still proudly manufacture their products in Hawai’i, and smaller designers like Sig Zane have entered the market as well, providing a variety of authentic Hawaiian shirts for the worldwide market.
Eric Langlois
Eric Langlois is a writer, menswear professional, and history enthusiast based on the North Shore of Massachusetts.
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