The first "aloha shirts" in Hawaii were probably made to order in the late 1920s by designers who would tailor shirts out of Japanese silk kimono and cotton yukata fabric. Young locals were fond of wearing colorful, custom-made, Filipino bayau shirts and tourists couldn't get enough of them. Punahou School graduate Ellery J. Chun worked for his family business next door to one of these popular tailors on King Street in Honolulu. Trained as an economist at Yale during the Great Depression, Chun was inspired by the sales potential of the new shirts. Between 1932 and 1933, Chun began to commercially manufacture aloha shirts under the name King-Smith Clothiers. At the same time, Koichiro Miyamoto began producing the same custom-ordered shirts under the name of Musa-Shiya the Shirtmaker.Marquesans performing a dance in 1909 while wearing the pāreu. Around 1810, the pāreu replaced the tapa (Hawaiian: kapa), the traditional polynesian garment. French painter Paul Gauguin famously portrayed the pāreu in his 1891 painting, Tahitian Women on the Beach. Pāreu, tapa (and kapa) designs influenced the art of the aloha shirt from the 1930s onward. Musa-Shiya purchased the first print advertisement for aloha shirts in 1935 and developed a unique advertising campaign. An entire industry was born, with companies like Surfriders, Branfleet (Kahala), and Kamehameha contributing their own unique designs to the mix. By 1941, the first legislation was introduced (but failed) to bring these comfortable clothes to the workplace. World War II brought aloha shirts international exposure, but it wasn't until 1947 when Aloha Week gave employees the opportunity to wear aloha shirts to work. "Aloha Wednesdays" arrived in 1948, but by 1965 had morphed into "Aloha Friday" which eventually became known as "Casual Friday" outside of Hawaii. Celebrities who popularized the aloha shirt include Bing Crosby, Harry Truman, Elvis, Duke Kahanamoku, John Wayne, and Tom Selleck.[1]
Aloha shirt is missing important sections on the manufacturing process, individual manufacturers, and printed fabric and designs. History can be broken down into subsections by decade during the "golden age", from 1930-1950. A section on celebrities can be expanded and good quality images are still needed. See WikiChecker for current page statistics.
Awards
This month, two members received project-related awards. Makana Chai was awarded The RickK Anti-Vandalism Barnstar for still finding the time to revert vandalism on her busy schedule. Kavebear received The Aloha Plumeria Award in honor of his incredible work as one of the most active editors on the project.
Articles needing attention
In July, WolterBot identified 15 articles with trivia sections. In order to solve this problem, a help request was filed with returning longtime editor and trivia expert Tbsdy lives (formerly Ta bu shi da yu); he has accepted. Please look for him on the pages linked above and direct any questions to a section named "trivia" on the article talk page.
Hōkūle‘a, a full-scale replica of a Polynesian voyaging canoe, has completed nine voyages using instrumentless navigation to travel to Micronesia, Polynesia, Japan, Canada, and the United States.
