The Hawaiian or Aloha Shirt
The Aloha shirt, is a style of dress shirt originating in [tag]HawaiÊ»i[/tag], USA. It is currently the premier textile export of the Hawai‘i manufacturing industry. These shirts are printed, mostly short-sleeved, and collared. They usually have buttons, sometimes as a complete button-down shirt, and sometimes just down to the chest (pullover). Aloha shirts usually have a left chest pocket sewn in to make the printed pattern continuous. Aloha shirts may be worn by men or women; women’s aloha shirts usually have a lower-cut, v-neck style.
[tag]Aloha shirts[/tag] exported to the mainland United States and elsewhere are called [tag]Hawaiian shirts[/tag] and often brilliantly colored with floral patterns or generic Polynesian motifs and are worn as casual, informal wear, and generally only by men.
The modern Aloha shirt was devised in the early 1930s by Chinese merchant Ellery Chun of King-Smith Clothiers and Dry Goods, a store in WaikÄ©kÄ. Chun began sewing brightly colored shirts for tourists out of old kimono fabrics he had leftover in stock. The Honolulu Advertiser newspaper was quick to coin the term Aloha shirt to describe Chun’s fashionable creation. Chun trademarked the name. The first advertisement in the Honolulu Advertiser for Chun’s Aloha shirt was published on June 28, 1935. Local residents, especially [tag]surfers[/tag], and [tag]tourists[/tag] descended on Chun’s store and bought every shirt he had. Within years, major designer labels sprung up all over Hawai’i and began manufacturing and selling Aloha shirts en masse.
The popularity of the Aloha shirt boomed in the United States after World War II as major celebrities sported the Hawaiian wear.
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