The Aloha shirt, also referred to as a Hawaiian shirt, is a style of dress shirt originating in Hawaii. They are collared and buttoned dress shirts, usually short-sleeved and cut from printed fabric. They are often worn untucked, but can be worn tucked in as well. They are not only casual, informal wear, but serve as formal business attire in Hawaii.
"Aloha Friday", a now-common tradition of celebrating the end of the workweek by wearing more casual attire on Fridays, initially grew out of an effort to promote Aloha shirts.[
The Aloha dress shirts are printed, mostly short-sleeved, and collared. They usually have buttons, sometimes for the entire length of the dress shirt and sometimes just down to the chest (pullover). They usually have a left chest pocket sewn in, often with attention to ensure the printed pattern remains continuous. Aloha shirts may be worn by men or women; women's Aloha shirts usually have a lower-cut, v-neck style.
The lower hems are straight,[2] and the shirts are often with the shirt-tails hanging out, rather than tucked in. Wearing a untucked shirt was possibly influenced by the local Filipinos who wore shirt-tail out, and called these bayau meaning "friend".[4][5][a] The dress code used to be more conservative. In the 1950s, the shirt became allowed as business attire for Aloha week, but only if worn tucked in.[7][8] It is a matter of personal taste to wear it tucked in or out.[9]
Traditional men's Aloha shirts, manufactured for local Hawaiian residents, are usually adorned with traditional Hawaiian quilt designs, tapa designs, and simple floral patterns in more muted colors. Contemporary Aloha shirts may have prints that do not feature any traditional Hawaiian quilt or floral designs but instead may incorporate drinks, palm trees, surf boards or other island tropical elements arranged in the same pattern[specify] as a traditional Aloha shirt.
It has been observed that locals (Kamaʻāina) tended to shy away from the garishness of Aloha shirts as "too wild" when they first appeared, and their tendencies to prefer less ostentatious designs remain today.[10] Whereas tourists (visitors) embraced wearing designs of many bright colors.[5] An example of the type of shirt the locals may prefer includes the "reverse print"; these shirts are often printed on the interior, resulting in the muted color on the exterior.
According to some sources, the origin of Aloha shirts can be traced to the 1920s[11] or the early 1930s,[12] when the Honolulu-based dry goods store "Musa-Shiya the Shirtmaker" under the proprietorship of Kōichirō Miyamoto,[12] started making shirts out of colorful Japanese prints.[b][11][12] It has also been contended that the Aloha shirt was devised in the early 1930s by Chinese merchant Ellery Chun of "King-Smith Clothiers and Dry Goods", a store in Waikiki.[14][15] Although this claim has been described as a myth reinforced by repeated telling,[16] Chun may have been the first to mass-produce[6] or to maintain the ready-to-wear in stock to be sold off the shelf.[3][4] The identity of the true creator of the Aloha shirt may never be known, according to Aloha shirt expert Dale Hope.[16]
The name "Aloha shirt" appeared later. By 1935 and 1936, the word "Aloha" was being attached to various sorts of Hawaiian products, so calling the garments "Aloha shirts" was hardly original.[11] The term Aloha shirt first appeared in print in an advertisement for Musa-Shiya in the June 28, 1935 issue of The Honolulu Advertiser newspaper.[11][17] However, Ellery Chun is sometimes credited for coining the term,[18] perhaps in 1933;[19] Chun's store reportedly carried window signs that said "Aloha shirts".[6][20] The term "Aloha sportswear" was registered as a trademark by Chun's company in 1936,[11][3] followed by Chun trademarking "Aloha Shirt" in 1937 and owning the rights to this appellation for the next 20 years.[21]
Within years, major designer labels sprang up all over Hawaii and began manufacturing and selling Aloha shirts en masse. By the end of the 1930s, 450 people were employed in an industry worth $600,000 annually.[22] Two notable manufacturers of this period are Kamehameha and Branfleet (later Kahala), both founded in 1936.[23][5] Retail chains in Hawaii, including mainland based ones, may mass-produce a single aloha shirt design for employee uniforms.
After World War II, many servicemen and servicewomen returned to the United States from Asia and the Pacific islands with aloha shirts made in Hawaii since the 1930s.[24] One significant manufacturer was Shaheen, which began business in 1948.[5] Following Hawaii's statehood in 1959, when extant tropical prints came to be regarded as rather tacky, designer Alfred Shaheen became noted for producing aloha shirts of higher chic and quality, and Elvis Presley wore a Shaheen-designed red aloha on the album cover for Blue Hawaii (1961).[24][25] In 1956, Tori Richard, a well-known brand of Alohas was established.[26][27] Reyn Spooner (or, rather, its precursor, Spooner's of Waikiki) also established business in 1956.[28
The related concept of "aloha attire" stems from the Aloha shirt. Semi-formal functions such as weddings, birthday parties, and dinners are often designated as "aloha attire", meaning that men wear Aloha shirts and women wear muumuu or other tropical prints. Because Hawaii tends to be more casual, it is rarely appropriate to attend such functions in full evening wear like on the mainland;[39] instead, aloha attire is seen as the happy medium between excessive formality and casual wear (i.e., business casual).
See also[edit]
- Barong Tagalog – formal Filipino shirt made of Pineapple fibre
- Batik – Indonesian and Malaysian shirt worn casually or as business attire
- Bowling shirt
- Camp Shirt
- Guayabera – Caribbean shirt worn casually or as business attire
- Kariyushi shirt – Okinawan shirt worn casually or as business attire
- Tori Richard – Aloha shirt brand
- Reyn Spooner – Aloha shirt brand
- Jams – Aloha shirt brand
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