Stories of Aloha

By Dennis Hollier

You'll find them arranged in tidy exhibits in the larger department stores, such as Macy's, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom and Sears. And you'll find them lavishly displayed in specialty stores, such as Reyn's, Tommy Bahama and Ka-hala. Collectively, they form a genre that's come to symbolize the gracious lifestyle of Hawai'i. We're talking, of course, about the aloha shirt.

Probably no one knows more about the story of the aloha shirt than Dale Hope, the creative director at Ka-hala, one of the most venerable names in Hawai'i's garment industry. Hope is the author of The Aloha Shirt, the definitive history of this classic Hawaiian wardrobe staple. More importantly, he's spent most of his life deeply enmeshed in the business. He was, in fact, born into the trade. His father played a central role in Hawai'i 's booming garment and textile industry in the 1950s and 1960s-the golden era of the aloha shirt. As a boy, Hope swept the floors of his father's factory, and he grew up among the designers, pattern cutters, seamstresses, button-makers and salesmen who made the garment industry, at its peak, Hawai'i's third-largest exporter.

Hope traces the origins of the aloha shirt to the palaka-a sort of madras-print shirting that, by the end of the 19th century, had become the standard uniform on the plantations, docks and ranches of Hawai'i. For the most part, Japanese and Filipino immigrants, using their skills as tailors and seamstresses, made the palaka. They also made kimonos and dresses. According to Hope, a sort of proto-aloha shirt emerged as these craftsmen began to make shirts out of these colorful fabrics.

"In the very, very beginning," Hope says, "before the war, they were all of Oriental design." Tailors in the 1920s and early 1930s used gaudy Japanese silk and cotton prints to make the loose-fitting shirts that would come to be known as aloha shirts. Gradually, local shirt makers began to work with the textile designers in Japan to produce designs that appealed more to local tastes. Where the early prints boasted scenes of Mount Fuji or bamboo forests or Hosukai seascapes, later designs included Hawaiian motifs, such as surfers, hula dancers and grass houses.

Another influence on the aloha shirt was pareu, a lightweight cotton fabric from Tahiti and the South Pacific, which began to replace traditional kapa in the 1860s. These fabrics, printed in bright floral patterns, became a staple for mu'umu'u and sarongs. Inevitably, they also became fodder for shirt-makers.

Exactly who made the first modern aloha shirt is widely debated. Some say it was "Musa-Shiya the Shirtmaker" who first made shirts from kapa-inspired fabric from Samoa in the late 1920s. He went on to a very successful trade selling aloha shirts to celebrities like John Barrymore, Alan Ladd and Douglas Fairbanks. But the first truly commercial production of aloha shirts is usually attributed to Ellery J. Chun, who, in 1931 or 1932, began to stock them in his drygoods store for the tourist trade. Chun even had the foresight to trademark the term "aloha shirt." But he was far from alone in recognizing the commercial potential. By the mid-1930s, a whole range of small labels arose, overshadowing the production of the individual tailors and seamstresses who first made the aloha shirts. In 1936, the Ka-hala label was born, with designs paying homage to the old pareu.

Shortly afterward came other labels, including Royal Hawaiian, Kahanamoku, Kamehameha and dozens of others.

Probably no one knows more about the story of the aloha shirt than Dale Hope, the creative director at Ka-hala, one of the most venerable names in Hawai'i's garment industry. Hope is the author of The Aloha Shirt, the definitive history of this classic Hawaiian wardrobe staple. More importantly, he's spent most of his life deeply enmeshed in the business. He was, in fact, born into the trade. His father played a central role in Hawai'i 's booming garment and textile industry in the 1950s and 1960s-the golden era of the aloha shirt. As a boy, Hope swept the floors of his father's factory, and he grew up among the designers, pattern cutters, seamstresses, button-makers and salesmen who made the garment industry, at its peak, Hawai'i's third-largest exporter.

In the 1950s, a new wave came to carry the aloha shirt banner: surfers. As surfer culture began to blossom after the war, coming to Hawai'i became the essential surfer pilgrimage. The aloha shirt was one of its sacraments. As Hope puts it, "Buying a Hawaiian shirt was kind of a badge of honor, proof that you'd been to Hawai'i and you'd lived the dream." He tells a story about Joe Quigg, Tommy Zahn and Dave Rochlen, early icons of the surfing scene, and some of the first wave of Mainland surfers who came to Hawai'i. Hope says, "I saw Joe one day and asked him, 'When you guys came here on your trip in 1947, did the aloha shirt mean very much to you?' And he said, 'Oh man, if you've got a pencil, I'll draw you the first print I ever got.' He's the most revered surfboard, catamaran and canoe builder-a Michelangelo of the ocean world for his day-and here he is telling me about the first aloha shirt he'd ever gotten." One of the most remarkable things about the aloha shirt is the proliferation of prints. The most famous, of course, are the seemingly endless variations on floral themes. But the range of designs goes far beyond florals. Almost from the beginning, artists have worked with a bewildering array of Hawaiian and tropical motifs. Sometimes the work is literal-a sensuous beach or mountain scene, for example. But just as often, the basic elements of Island life are blended together into abstract patterns. Companies such as Reyn's or Ka-hala turn out a constant stream of new designs. "Ka-hala might make 200 different prints in a year," Hope says. Suzie Metivier, who's worked at the Reyn's store in Ala Moana for more than 30 years, says it's the same at Reyn's. In part, this profusion of prints reflects the public's insatiable demand for new designs. But it's also tied to the intricacies of the silk-screening process that's used to transfer the designs to the fabric. Even today, each design must be individually screened onto the fabric in small batches. Typically, the silk-screen is only used for one season then the design is discontinued. Only in rare cases, like Reyn's Heritage Collection, does a design last more than a season. As a result, there have been tens of thousands of unique prints.

To tourists, the aloha shirt is associated with brash colors and a carefree lifestyle. In Hawai'i, the aloha shirt has a second cousin, a more subdued and dignified version that has become the uniform of choice for local businessmen. Probably no company has played as big a role in this development as Reyn's. Founded by Reyn McCullough, a haberdasher transplant from California, Reyn's b ought a more buttoned-down, Ivy League sensibility to Hawaiian shirts. In fact, the Reyn's Ala Moana location is one of the few original stores left from the center's opening in 1959. That longevity stems largely from the company's innovation and crafty promotion of the reverse-weave prints it began making in the early '60s.

Reverse-weave patterns-which, instead of tailoring the shirt with the bright design on the outside, the fabric was reversed, with the more muted underside exposed-offered a much subtler approach to aloha shirts. This technique became associated with Reyn's, whose more conservative shirts, with two-part, button-down collars and understated designs, quickly became popular with businessmen. As Kirk Hubbard, the COO of Reyn-Spooner, the manufacturing arm of Reyn's, points out, "It eventually became the attire that was able to boot the suit-the coat and tie-out of the office and workplace."

Part of the appeal of a Reyn's shirt was also tied to its trademark material: Spooner Kloth, a durable, low-maintenance, cotton-polyester blend. "Spooner Kloth is fabric that the company's well-known for," says Hubbard. "But, if you tried to get off the ground today with something like this, you would fail." When brand new, Spooner Kloth is imposingly stiff, especially compared to the silks and rayons that are so popular in today's aloha shirts. But, much like bluejeans, Spooner Kloth softens over time. It's easy to care for, it can look fresh right out of the drier, and it lasts nearly forever "It's not unusual to see 25- or 30-year-old Reyn's shirts walking around on Bishop Street," Hubbard says.

At the other extreme from the workday look of Reyn's are Tori Richard's elegant aloha shirts. Founded by Mort Feldman in the mid-1950s, Tori Richard has found its niche with an upscale, leisure sensibility. In fact, despite their obvious debt to the aloha shirts of the 1920s and 1930s, Tori Richard prefers to call its shirts "resort wear" instead of aloha shirts. Nevertheless, in Hawai'i, Tori Richard has come to be associated with a kind of casual elegance, and the Tori Richard style dominates men's wear at weddings and dress events.

One thing is clear, though-the aloha shirt long ago transcended its Hawaiian origins. Perhaps no company epitomizes that better than Tommy Bahama. Although the company has its roots in southern Florida, and today is based in Seattle, Tommy Bahama has had a tremendous influence on the world of the aloha shirt. As Hubbard notes, "Before, we thought of an aloha shirt as a shirt with flowers and that was very expressive. It's no longer limited to that. Today, companies like Tommy Bahama have exploded the definition." In fact, with the frequent use of paneled construction, and sometimes complete lack of prints, Tommy Bahama shirts seem to owe as much to the influence of working-class bowling shirts and Mexican guayabanas as to the Hawaiian shirt. And yet, they're unmistakably aloha shirts.

Kahala, which was recently acquired by Tori Richard, has always been a casual brand, more closely associated with beach boy and surfer culture than with the businessman or upscale vacationer. Today, the Ka-hala line is dominated by nostalgic designs that are influenced by the old pareus and the early days of aloha shirts. Many Ka-hala shirts are made with a soft, enzyme-washed cotton that gives them that lived-in feel right off the rack. But the intangible air of authenticity is what makes Ka-hala shirts stand out. Part of that can be attributed to Hope. "As the creative director," Hope says, "my role here is to be an ambassador for the brand, to keep it real." Every day, he works with designers to come up with art work that expresses the essence of life in Hawai'i. In one design, he might work with a famous surfboard shaper, producing a kind of visual encyclopedia of the history of Hawaiian surfboards. For another, it might be a simple tribute to the pareu shirts favored by Duke Kahanamoku. All of them have something to say about the history of the aloha shirt. That's because, to Hope, the aloha shirt is a powerful emblem for the qualities that make Hawai'i special.

On the hang tag of the modern Kahala shirt is a motto that Hope borrowed from his friend, the great surfer Gerry Lopez. It says, "Aloha is a Hawaiian greeting of love, grace and compassion for others. To have the aloha spirit is to live every day with these virtues. The aloha shirt is a symbol of the aloha spirit. By wearing the shirt, one also wears the spirit and shares the feeling of aloha with everyone."