History of Hawaiian shirts

The Hawaiian shirt is a style of camp shirt featuring brightly printed island themed fabrics. In the islands, they are called Aloha shirts, and are short sleeved, collared and are usually buttoned up in front. There is usually a left chest pocket carefully sewn in to match the background fabric. Ours have buttons made from genuine coconut shells. They may be worn by men or women.

What distinguishes the Aloha shirt from others styles are the beautifully printed fabrics that are used in their production. Designs include traditional floral patterns and Polynesian motifs as well as modern variations that might include full island scenes or automotive themes made popular by textile designers in Calfornia.

Since island living tends to be more casual, Hawaiian shirts manufactured for everyday wear in Hawaii are considered formal wear in business and government.

History

Remembering the clothing made for him by his mother when he was a child, Waikiki merchant Ellery Chun made the first commercially produced Hawaiian shirts in the early 1930’s. Chun started by sewing sewing brightly colored shirts for out of old kimono fabrics he had leftover. They were quickly snapped up by local residents, surfers, tourists, and military personnel from the mainland. The Honolulu Advertiser newspaper was the first to use the term Aloha shirt to describe Chun's creation. Soon, many other companies started producing their own shirts from fabric remnants imported from Kyoto and Osaka. Popular fabrics were cotton yukata and the popular rayon Kabe Crepe and Fujiettes. Silk fabrics were also used. In the late 50’s polyester fabrics started to make some inroads. We use the traditional rayon and cotton exclusively.

It quickly became apparent that using remnants as a fabric source would not be sufficient to meet the demand, so Honolulu based designers traveled to Japan to source Yukata fabric and create their own island style designs. Some mills on the US mainland also got into the business. In an effort to cut the long lead times, several fabric printing companies started production directly on Oahu, however the Japanese were always the main source for the printed fabrics due to their high quality and reasonable pricing.

Ellery Chun

ELLERY CHUN was the man responsible for putting palm trees on to people. He virtually single-handedly popularised the Hawaiian shirt - in turn promoting menswear's most enduring good-time garment.

Chun graduated from Yale, having read Economics, in 1931. A native Hawaiian, he then returned to his birthplace, transforming a Chinese dry-goods shop, with the sombre trade name King-Smith Clothiers, into the first flagship store to manufacture Hawaiian shirts on a large scale. In the same way that Ralph Lauren made his fortune by plundering the past, Chun made his name by marketing a garment that already existed. At the turn of the century, Hawaiian dress - for both men and women - consisted of plain coloured workwear. By the 1920s, Hawaiian shirts - a basic shirt but infused with a colourful print - had been invented. The influx of American tourists to Hawaii was mesmerised by the tropical colours. Before long, the Hawaiian shirt had become the sartorial equivalent of Brighton rock.

In an attempt to keep a steady cashflow during the Thirties Depression, Chun, supported by his wife Mildred, employed a tailor to mass-produce brightly printed shirts, invariably printed with tropical paraphernalia - pineapples, hula girls, palm trees, birds of paradise and glorious sunsets. By the mid-1930s, Chun was importing fabric from as far afield as Japan and had renamed the Hawaiian shirt the "Aloha shirt". As if the brilliant colours weren't welcoming enough.

It was not until the 1950s - with the advent of television and arrival of post-war prosperity - that Hawaiian shirts achieved celebrity status by being inadvertently promoted by a series of sex symbols: Montgomery Clift wore one in From Here To Eternity, the Oscar-winning 1953 film which centred on an American army base in Pearl Harbor. Elvis Presley sported one in Blue Hawaii (1961) - singing such gems as "Rock-A-Hula Baby" - accessorised with his trademark quiff and girls swooning at his feet. Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby were both advocates.

The Aloha shirt transcended the class barriers when US Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Harry S. Truman were photographed wearing them off-duty. Television continued to keep the shirt in the public eye: most notably by the characters in the series Hawaii Five-O, and Tom Selleck in Magnum - his shirt, printed with birds, was displayed in the Smithsonian Institution.

Later, the Hawaiian shirt was adopted by the pop industry as a symbol of reckless youth - worn by the Beach Boys, the Monkees, and more recently in Wham's video for their 1983 single "Club Tropicana". In Channel 4's cult series Stella Street, Jack Nicholson, brilliantly caricatured by Phil Cornwell, always sports a Hawaiian shirt and shades, underlining the absurdity of Hollywood's ultimate party animal living in social Siberia. The basic Hawaiian shirt design remained unchanged throughout its colourful history. Based on an original plain work shirt called a palaka, the design has always consisted of half sleeves, flat rever and loose fit, always worn outside, and never tucked inside, trousers. Fabrics are invariably those which are cool and have an element of fluidity - rayon being the most popular and responsive to print. Since its conception, there have been thousands of variations on the same print theme - the most popular surviving for over half a century. Vintage versions are collectors' items. The Hawaiian shirt's status as a design classic was assured when the Honolulu Academy of Arts mounted an exhibition of the seminal shirts of the century.

Adept at self-promotion, Ellery Chun sponsored a radio talent show, became a local celebrity, and eventually, having exhausted the possibilities of the Hawaiian shirt industry, became director of American Security Bank. He was honoured in 1991 by the Hawaiian Senate for his remarkable marketing achievements.

Ellery Chun, shirt manufacturer: born 1908; married (one son, two daughters); died Honolulu 16 May 2000.