Roots of Modern Hawaiian Wear
Native Hawaiians created the fabric for clothing from plants and trees. This
fabric is called "tapa" cloth, which was fabricated from the inner
bark of wauke trees. Natural dyes were used to create different patterns in the
tapa. Tapa was made into loin cloths called the "malo", and skirts
called "pa’u" for women.
Tapa was tough, durable and versatile enough to be used for other things like flooring. People hand-painted their tapa with beautiful colors and exquisite designs. The brilliant, colored patterns found on today's Hawaiian shirts and dresses find their roots in these ancient Hawaiian tapa prints.
The Emergence of the Hawaiian Shirt
In the late 19th century, Hawaii became a major producer and exporter of
pineapple and sugar. Plantation workers needed a rugged shirt that was suitable
for hard labor in the fields. Within a generation, the checkered blue and white
denim "palaka" became the standard work shirt of Hawaii.
Shirts were also tailored by hand out of imported printed fabric. Short and long-sleeved shirts as well as women's dresses were based on textile designs made from pre-printed fabrics from China and Japan. These colorful shirts and dresses were the direct ancestors of the modern Hawaiian shirt. It wasn’t until the mid-1930s that Hawaii’s clothing manufacturers started producing fabrics that were uniquely Hawaiian in design.
The "First" Aloha Shirt
As shirts with Oriental and Hawaiian designs began appearing in Honolulu in
the early 1930s, it is believed that people started referring to these shirts as
"aloha shirts" as a sort of street slang. Musa-Shiya, the Shirtmaker
first advertised the "aloha shirt" in the Honolulu Advertiser on June 28, 1935:
"Honolulu's Noted Shirt Maker and Kimono Shop. 'Aloha' shirts - well tailored,
beautiful designs and radiant colors. Ready-made or made to order…95 cents up."
By another account, an advertising salesperson from the Honolulu Advertiser and
Ellery Chun, the owner of the King-Smith dry goods store, first coined the term
"aloha shirt." In fact Mr. Chun officially registered a trademark for his Aloha
sportswear on July 15, 1936.
Help from Hollywood
Movie stars and celebrities have done quite a job at promoting Hawaiian
clothing. In the early years, Montgomery Cliff, Burt Lancaster, Ernest Borgnine
and Frank Sinatra all wore Hawaiian shirts in the movie “From Here to Eternity”.
Ginger Rogers wore satin gowns of Hawaiian designs while Bing Crosby wore
Hawaiian shirt and porkpie hat. Even Betty Grable did a promo pin-up shot
wearing a Hawaiian-style swimsuit in the 1940s. More recently, Tom Selleck often
wore the signature "Magnum PI" Hawaiian shirt, which is now in the Smithsonian
Institute. The Hawaiian shirt has become synonymous not only with the image of
Hawaii, but with the casual, care-free, happy lifestyle in modern culture.
Undoubtedly, Hollywood has only helped the Hawaiian shirt grow in popularity
over the decades.
Casual Day & Aloha Friday
Today, subdued aloha shirts has become a sort of standard work shirt for
professionals in Hawaii. But this was not always the case. Workers in Hawaii
used to wear more formal attire commonly found on the Mainland. But in 1947 the
Honolulu Board of Supervisors passed a resolution whereby City & County
employees were not only allowed, but actually encouraged, to wear Hawaiian
shirts from June 1 to October 31 each year to beat the summer heat. This single
act by a local government has had a powerful influence on businesses and civil
servant departments around the world, especially where summers are unbearably
hot.
Today in Hawaii, every Friday is "Aloha Friday". It's the day when you wear your favorite aloha dress or aloha shirt. This is sometimes hard to notice because people wear aloha shirts to work everyday anyway. This tradition has migrated to some offices on the mainland where workers are allowed to dress casually on Fridays and some even allow workers to wear Hawaiian shirts.
Hawaiian Shirt vs Aloha Shirt
The terms “Hawaiian shirt” and “aloha shirt” are often used interchangeably.
Technically, in order for a shirt to be called an “aloha shirt”, it must be made
in Hawaii. But most people around the world know the aloha shirt as the
“Hawaiian shirt”. The reason for this distinction came about as local
manufacturers started facing stiff competition from other U.S. and foreign
manufacturers. In the 1950s local manufacturers began adding the phrase "Made in
Hawaii" to their garment labels to protect the value and desirability of
authentic Hawaiian shirts in the marketplace. They wanted the term “aloha shirt”
to be reserved only for shirts "Made in Hawaii" to allowed true aloha shirts to
stand out in a market that was being flooded by cheap imitations and mail order
garments.
