Vintage Hawaiian shirts are a beautiful symbol of art, history, and ethnic diversity. Native Hawaiians, early Westerners, and immigrants from around the world all contributed to the Aloha shirt, or Hawaiian shirt as it is more commonly known. Vintage Hawaiian shirts are collectible because of the artwork, history, and cultural stories they tell.
Originally, native Hawaiians wore simple clothing made from barkcloth, which was made by processing the inner bark of the mulberry tree.
In 1798, James Cook and his men brought back long-sleeved collared shirts, which the natives sought as valuable possessions and traded for. Eventually, the natives began to make shirts out of bark cloth, which laid the foundation for the Aloha shirt.
In the 1800s missionaries and immigrants arrived from all over the world.
The Chinese were the majority of the tailors in the islands and had Japanese fabrics in stock to make kimonos for Japanese women and girls.
From the Philippines, the men brought barog tagalogs, which were traditional Filipino shirts that were meant to be worn outside the pants.
In the 1900s, brightly colored palaka shirts were worn by plantation workers.
So the story goes…
In the early 1930s, a group of teenagers went to a Chinese tailor to have matching shirts made for them. They chose a brightly colored kabe crepe material, which tailors used to make kimonos. The bright color of the shirt was also reminiscent of the palakas worn by plantation workers.
Until the 1930s, Hawaii was a very formal place and it was not common to wear your shirt outside your pants. These shirts were also designed so that boys could wear them outside their pants, similar to the barog Tagalogs of the Filipinos.
And there you have it, teenage rebellion and the first modern Aloha shirts as we know them today.
A little known fact about vintage Hawaiian shirts is that all prints up until the mid-1930s were of Asian art and design. That’s because all the shirts were made with fabrics brought from Asia. It wasn’t until the Aloha shirt became fashionable that people started making them in island designs.
Today, it stands to reason that the Hawaiian shirt has come to represent much more than a vacation and a laid-back lifestyle. They are not only beautiful works of art, but have a rich history and are a great symbol of cultural diversity.