The 'Spirit' of Aloha Tshirt

“The “Aloha Spirit” is about living every day with love, grace and compassion for others. The Aloha Shirt can be a symbol of that spirit.”
–Gerry Lopez

In a 1966 Magazine article, Hope Dennis, a journalist and textile designer wrote; “About 35 years ago an astute Hawaiian garment manufacturer (who shall remain nameless to avoid renewing a 35 year old argument) designed the first aloha shirt, launching what was to become the golden age for Aloha shirts – the 1930s through the 1950s.  The definitive origin of the Aloha shirt is murky but there are at least four companies who were there at the beginning.

MUSASHIYA

Honolulu resident Margaret Young told the Honolulu Star Bulletin that Gordon Young in the early 1920s developed a pre-aloha shirt, which became popular with his classmates at the University of Hawaii. His mother’s dressmaker tailored shirts for him out of cotton yukata cloth used by Japanese women for work kimonos. These shirts were made with narrow-width fabric and usually had a blue or black bamboo or geometric design on a white ground. He was a big guy, and she wrote that it took several widths to make one shirt for him. She said, that he took quite a supply of shirts to the University of Washington in 1926, creating a real “topic of conversation.”

In June of 1935, Musa-Shiya Shoten, a tailor in Honolulu, ran the first newspaper ad for an “Aloha Shirt” with well-tailored, beautiful designs and radiant colors, “ready-made or made-to-order  for 95 cents and up.” A year later, Musashiya placed another tiny ad that read “Specials For Tourists! Aloha Shirts made to order or ready-made.”

Dolores Miyamoto was the wife and working partner of Musashiya. She made shirts for Shirley Temple and recalled John Barrymore came into the store in the early 1930s, pointed at original Japanese kabe crepe fabric and ordered a custom printed shirt. Until that moment, Musashiya had not made a printed shirt and believes she made the first one.

KING-SMITH CLOTHIERS

One of the most well-known stories about the Aloha shirt’s beginnings is the story of the Chun family and King-Smith Clothiers. Ellery Chun recalled that local boys wore casual shirts made of Japanese challis and local Filipino boys wore brilliantly colored shirts known as bayau shirts. Many of the local boys took visiting tourists to tailor shops for custom made shirts, but it was Ellery’s idea to have ready-made shirts hanging in stock at his father’s store, King-Smith Clothiers. In a store window, he placed a small sign, “Hawaiian Shirts” and sold his first printed shirts made out of brilliant and gaudy Japanese kimono material in 1932 or 1933. Ellery was the first to register the trademarks, “Aloha Sportswear” in 1936 and “Aloha Shirt” in 1937.

Ellery’s sister, Ethel, was one of the early textile artists who pioneered textile designs. “She turned impressions of her first cruise to the mainland on the Matson liner Malolo into one of her initial tropical shirt designs. Sketches of the flying fish she saw from the ship ended up on the pattern for one of the original Aloha shirts produced by King-Smith.”

T.H. HO AND SURFRIDERS SPORTSWEAR

T.H. Ho got his start by making shoes and palaka shirts for plantation workers,  and may have also been one of the original Aloha shirt makers under the label Surfriders Sportswear. They had an island-style retail store in the middle of Waikiki and produced many of the elegant shirts that are still cherished by collectors today.

RUBE HAUSEMAN

In 1935, Rube Hauseman was making Aloha shirts, contracting the manufacture to Wong’s Products in Kalihi. He bought crepe, batiks and Fuji silk in vivid colored patterns from Musashiya to create his shirts.

Rube was friends with many of the local beach boys of Waikiki such as legendary watermen Panama Dave, Colgate and William “Chick” Daniels. After surfing, he and his friends would eat Japanese food in Waikiki, and later go to their hangouts in downtown Honolulu. One of their favorite haunts was the Rathskellar Bar, a popular spot for locals and visiting celebrities like Bing Crosby and other noted musicians of the time.

Rube would give the beach boys the wildest and most vivid of his shirts to wear to the Rathskellar.  According to a 1953 article in the Honolulu Star Bulletin, “the shirt most commonly referred to as the Aloha shirt was first called the Rathskellar shirt.”

AN EVOLUTION

In 1936, Watumull’s East India Store commissioned Elsie Das to create 15 original Hawaiian prints. They were printed on raw silk for the home furnishing’s market and later for Aloha shirts.

Artists and designers began to interpret their island surroundings. Elsie and others started to create their own designs, substituting what had traditionally been Japanese styled motifs and prints on the imported fabrics. Diamond Head was substituted for Mt. Fuji. Japanese pine trees changed to coconut trees, and thatched huts with ocean scenes and surfers, canoes on waves, and canoes sailing. Fish and flowers replaced bamboo, cranes, tigers and shrines.

The imagery that characterized the first prints from the Orient were converted to distinctly Hawaiian themes. Romantic island motifs and tropical landscapes adorned these new casual shirts, reflecting encounters with this new, dreamy and spirited tropical paradise.

Entrepreneurs opened new factories in Honolulu, which was then a Trust Territory of the United States, to produce Aloha shirts by the thousands. By the late 1930s, shirts were increasingly mass-produced and a growing selection of brands and labels were available.

Aloha shirts were worn after a day at the beach in Waikiki, or to an evening moonlight luau. And they were brought stateside as a cherished keepsake or reminder of carefree island experiences.

The tradition continues in Hawaii and well beyond her shores, encouraged by the acceptance of an even more relaxed lifestyle and more casual dress standards enjoyed around the world today.  The Aloha Shirt is still popular and has become the traditional clothing of the islands and the laid-back paradise lifestyle.

I love that, for many people, when you wear an Aloha Shirt, you are acknowledging a deep appreciation of what we have here in Hawaii.

Dale Hope
TheAlohaShirt.com
Honolulu, Hawaii 2014

CREDIT: http://thealohashirt.net/

SOURCE LINK: http://thealohashirt.net/history/