Dad was a buttoned down working stiff with a white shirt, pork pie hat and a '57 Nash, but he was easy to spot on the weekends lounging around the barbecue in his finest green, blue, yellow and orange Hawaiian shirts.
Ellery Chun
Of course, what I thought of as a kid as a "Hawaiian luau shirt" is known as an "aloha shirt," and they are as much as part of Hawaii as pineapples and coconuts. All recent imports and innovations.
The aloha shirt as we know it was actually created by Ellery J. Chun of Honolulu. Chun first designed, produced and sold the distinctive shirts in 1931 at "King-Smith Clothiers," his family's store in Honolulu.
The aloha shirts were an immediate success and showed palm trees, hula dancers and pineapples. As the story goes, the shirts were a blend of sugar plantation shirts from the 1800's and the open collars then worn by Japanese schoolchildren in Honolulu. Shortly thereafter Chun registered "Aloha" as a trade name.
Aloha fashion
Hundreds of thousands of servicemen passed through Hawaii during World War II and they bought tens of thousands of aloha shirts. Aloha shirts remained popular on and off the islands during the 1950's and into the '60's.
All the stars in the 1953 movie version of James Jones' "From Here to Eternity" were dressed in aloha shirts, and just about everyone in every TV show or film set in Hawaii since then wears an aloha shirt, from Elvis to "Hawaii Five-O" and "Baywatch."
In the late Sixties and up until the mid-Seventies second hand aloha shirts were popular with young people throughout the USA, and not only as summer shirts. They were cheap, casual, colorful and fit the times perfectly. Just look at the colors of everyday America throughout the Seventies, and now there are aloha shirts in the Smithsonian courtesy of "Magnum, P.I."
Free and loose
The basic cut of the aloha shirt is free and loose. The wide short sleeves and comfortable open neck and collar are perfect for warm weather and recreational activities. The bottom is hemmed straight and not meant to be tucked in.
The older shirts were made from rayon, silkier and cheaper than silk, and sold for about a dollar. (But remember $1 in 1936 is worth nearly $13 today.)
The basic cut of the aloha shirt hasn't changed, except perhaps that today's shirts are bigger and what was once a "L" would today be a "M." And today, aloha shirts come in every lightweight fabric available, silk, rayon, blends, cottons, and in every price range.
Rainbow of designs
But what hasn't changed is the incredible variety of shirt designs. There might be more aloha shirts than there are colors of a Maui sunset. The early shirts were made by a handful of makers for the tourists and so the shirts are about pineapples, hula dancers, leis and beaches. The colors are bright and contrasty.
After the shirts caught on as comfortable leisure wear and more and more makers put their hand to the loom, aloha shirt designs bloomed. Today aloha shirts come in all the colors of the rainbow and millions of manmade hues. The designs are traditional, retro, futuristic, and everything in between.
They are good and bad, loud and subdued, breath taking and tacky, but with all clothes you have dress for the occasion. There's the shirt you wear to the bars in Waikiki and the shirt you wear to church the next day. You can wear a Hawaiian shirt to a funeral and to a bachelor party, you just have to have a sense of occasion.
Aloha shirts for every occasion
Aloha shirts go with the sun. Shirts with dark colored backgrounds (black, deep blues and greens) are for evening activities. Lighter and brighter colors are for daytime. The simpler the design the more subdued. The more cluttered the design the "louder" the shirt, and a bright yellow, orange and blue shirt with surfers, pineapples, leis and coconuts and the words "Waikiki Baby" is much too loud for most public gatherings.
Darker colors, simple and subtle designs are good for evenings out. Lighter colors with simple and spare designs are fine for daytime, while bright neon rainbows, wild and wooly surfers and beach bunnies are strictly party time.
Businesses in Hawaii have their own aloha shirt designs made for their employees, associates and to spread their brand names. Other places may order t-shirts, but in Honolulu you can also get an aloha shirt.
To help celebrate their 100th anniversary in '01 the Sheraton Moana Surfrider resort in Waikiki got together with Hilo Hattie, the largest maker of Hawaiian fashions, and designed an exclusive aloha shirt.
The shirt and a pareo for women show postcard images of the Moana Hotel from 1910 - 1918, a 1927-era surfer off Waikiki, and the hotel's famous Banyan Tree, and if you're in Waikiki, you'll find them at the Moana Marketplace.
"Aloha" for the world
Ellery Chun's aloha shirts transformed Honolulu's drab workplaces and the world. Aloha shirts started the movement for "Aloha Friday" and "Dress Down Friday" in Hawaii, and in 1991, on the 60th anniversary of his famous creation, Ellery Chun was officially recognized by the State of Hawaii for his aloha shirts.
"Aloha" is a greeting, but the word means love, mercy and compassion to one and all as part of a peaceful family. They're are as colorful as ourselves, and maybe that's why they're so popular?
Sadly, Ellery Chun passed away in May 2000 at the age of 91 in Honolulu, but of course you know what everyone wore to the funeral.
In 1931 Ellery Chun had an idea and joined Mr. Levi in putting clothes on the world. Chun designed, made, and sold the original Hawaiian Aloha shirts at the family's King-Smith store in Honolulu. Soon they were showing up all over the USA. Servicemen and visitors wore them as reminders of their wonderful stays in Hawaii, and before long they replaced office formal wear in the islands. Today, fabric quality and design colors are all that distinguish casual party shirts from office and workplace aloha wear.
• "The Aloha Shirt: Spirit of the Islands"
• Aloha Shirt Creator Chun Dies at 91
• Aloha! Classic Hawaiian Shirts
