Wear Your Aloha

Diversity helps define Hawai’i, so it’s not surprising that a diversity of ideas and approaches from designers helps define alohawear, the clothing of Hawai’i.

When I talked with Island designers about trends in alohawear, they described several distinctions. One that kept coming up was the differences between alohawear worn by locals and some tourists and resort wear mostly worn by tourists. And they talked about their inspirations, among them the Hawaiian culture and the real stories of local people – not tourists’ illusions about the Islands. Another common inspiration is nostalgia – re-creating the look of an earlier generation of alohawear.

Alohawear “represents us, our lifestyle, our culture and our aloha,” says Tom Park, director and head of brand at Kahala, a local maker of aloha shorts and other alohawear since 1936.

Duke’s pareo from Kahala, left, is based on a 1960s design. Right, Craig Katsuyoshi, owner of Helena’s Hawaiian Food, partnered with Kahala to create aloha shirts inspired by favorite menu items.| Photo courtesy: Kahala

“It is an easy way for us to share our aloha with the world. In Hawai‘i, an aloha shirt can be worn casually or dressy. Kids wear aloha shirts to school, bankers and attorneys wear aloha shirts in the boardroom. It really is the most versatile piece of clothing you can wear here in the Islands.”

Park says Kahala’s designers get inspiration from all over the Islands, and their creations tell the stories of those places. “Whether it’s Uncle’s mango tree, the beautiful heliconias they saw on a stroll through the garden or the sea life off the shore of Hanauma Bay, they are always looking for inspiration from daily life.”

Outsiders often consider aloha shirts, Hawaiian shirts and resort shirts to be the same things, but they’re not.

Authentic Versus Inauthentic

Tory Laitila, Honolulu Museum of Art’s curator of textiles and historic arts, created the “Fashioning Aloha” exhibit at the museum, which runs through Sept. 1. He says the only connection some so-called “Hawaiian shirts” have to the Islands is they’re called “Hawaiian.”

A scene from the Honolulu Museum of Art’s “Fashioning Aloha” exhibit, which runs through Sept. 1. | Photo courtesy: HoMA

“Alohawear and aloha shirts are designed for people in Hawai‘i,” he says. “The Hawaiian shirt can be for anybody who came to Hawai‘i … even the shirt with the birds that’s referencing Central America with their patterns.”

Laitila compares these kinds of Hawaiian shirts to “Hawaiian pizza,” a Canadian invention made with pineapple and ham, and has nothing to do with Hawai‘i.

As for a loud, brash Hawaiian shirt created outside of the Islands, he asks, “Is it even Hawai‘i? Is it a Hawaiian designer? I don’t know, but they market it as Hawaiian shirts.”

Many of the people I interviewed say Hawai‘i residents tend to look for authentic storytelling and actual local colors and images in their alohawear, rather than the loud styles frequently worn in mainland offices on casual Fridays and by similarly loud characters on TV and in B movies.

Andy Reilly, a professor of fashion design and merchandising at UH Mānoa, says local residents look for alohawear “that isn’t your typical tourist Hawai‘i with the bright colors and the sunsets and the dolphin jumping in the background. They’re looking at things that are more representative of what Hawai‘i is, so maybe more greens, browns, blacks.”

Reilly says his research also shows that locals prefer clothing that represents Hawai‘i or Hawaiian culture accurately and are turning to local and Hawaiian designers for that look.

“With tourists’ shirts it’s less about the story” than the aloha shirts that locals lean toward.

Inspired by Native Plants and Chants

Sig Zane Designs, a Hilo-based design company, has been educating and sharing Hawaiian culture through design for almost 40 years. Creative Director Kūha‘o Zane says “the term Hawaiian shirts has taken on an aesthetic that was created outside of Hawai‘i.”

While discussing the difference between aloha shirts and Hawaiian shirts, Zane says he does not want to cede either term to outsiders, including Hawaiian shirts. “I don’t want to give them that term. I think we should own both terms. They can have resort wear. I don’t want the term resort wear, but we can own aloha.”

Zane has been working with the company for 21 years and has been helping his father, Sig Zane, since he was a little kid hanging around the Hilo shop. Sig Zane Designs integrates the teachings of Hālau O Kekuhi, the family hālau, into its work. The design of their shirts is inspired by chants, mo‘olelo, hula and nine native plants: ‘ie‘ie, ‘ōhi‘a, palapalai, pala‘ā, koa, ‘ōlapa, maile, kukui and laua‘e.

“In our hula kuahu, there’s a core of nine plants total. And those are our main inspiration, because those are the ones that we learned to make leis out of. They’re the ones that we use in our kuahu practices,” Zane says.

The inspirations for designs can be historical. “Sometimes it might be like a mo‘olelo that my dad hears from some kūpuna in the area about a specific plant, and it may have an additional use, or may be a part of a larger legend of that area. And so it ranges, but I would say a lot of it has to be based within cultural narrative.”

In fact, Zane says, an accompanying narrative is now expected in local designs. “We were able to shift what the norm is in Hawai‘i. … You’ve got to have a narrative behind it.”

Designs Beyond Clothing

Zane says he is constantly looking for opportunities to expand his designs beyond clothing. As an example, he says he was a part of the conversation when UH Mānoa planned new wayfinding signs on campus. Initially, the university had contracted two mainland designers and Zane sat in on their meeting as a consultant. During the meeting, a UH staff member said designers should not create a Hawaiian design without a narrative behind it.

Examples of how Hawaiian designs have moved beyond clothing. Left: The wall pattern was inspired by Kapa textures. Right: The bilingual building signs at UH Mānoa showcase plants from that valley. | Photos courtesy: Sig Zane

The resulting bilingual signs – in English and Hawaiian – that stand in front of various buildings were recognized with a design award as part of Fast Company’s 2023 World-Changing Ideas Awards.

Zane says aloha shirt designers can bring unique perspectives from their clothing into “all aspects of the design industry.”

“I would hope that no matter if it’s a developer from the mainland, or if it’s even a company from the mainland, that they tap into the talent of visual artists” in the Islands. Designers who make their living off of alohawear, he says, “can also help design the spaces within Hawai‘i.”

That’s what Zane and his father have done: Their designs have appeared in Louis Vuitton stores, the foyer of American Savings Bank branches and the exterior of Hawaiian Airlines planes.

“We’re using the visual artist talents that we have here and implementing them beyond just the platform of fashion,” Zane says.

“We use the aloha shirt as more of an aesthetic platform that can be almost like a storyboard to tell a story. But now we’re starting to take some of those values and some of those functionalities that we talk about in these narratives, and now we’re starting to implement those into our real world today.”

Bringing Back Vintage Designs

Alexis Akiona, owner and founder of the clothing company Lexbreezy Hawai‘i, says her mission is to inspire all generations to wear alohawear every day, not just on Fridays.

“Anytime I’m seeing somebody with their alohawear on, it gives me a sense of pride,” she says. “We live in Hawai‘i, we have the aloha spirit here. It’s a sense of home, it’s a sense of our culture. … It connects us to not only now, but generations.”

Akiona says she creates comfortable alohawear that shares the stories of Hawai‘i’s people, plants and patterns. But she says that when she started her business, “alohawear wasn’t really trendy. It was for lū‘au, weddings, family parties.” Now, it’s making a comeback – and that includes mu‘umu‘u or other vintage styles that people sometimes find in their tutu’s closet or at thrift stores.

Lexbreezy Hawaiʻi says it is modernizing alohawear for all genders, ages and sizes. | Photos courtesy: Lexbreezy

“I’ve seen it mostly with professionals or maybe people in their 30s or 40s and young people.”

At UH Mānoa, Reilly says he oversees the world’s largest historic collection of aloha shirts and other alohawear, a part of the university’s historic costume collection. He estimates it has 10,000 to 15,000 pieces, with clothing from the 1930s to today. People can study Hawai‘i’s fashion trends over the decades, including those inspired by 1970s pop art and the corporate ’90s, with their more muted colors.

The collection includes early alohawear made from rayon, often nicknamed “silkies” for its silk-like feel, from the 1940s and ’50s to contemporary versions of Hawaiian shirts, plus representative examples of clothing – including traditional pieces – from Southeast Asia, Pakistan, Turkey, Western Europe and other places or examples influenced by those places.

“In my role as curator, I’m looking at it as, ‘What is the story of the people of Hawai‘i?’” Reilly says. “A lot of other museum collections focus on pictorial garments and very high-end garments. And while we do have great examples of those, this focuses more on what the people were wearing.”

At left, this 1968 ‘Iolani fashion Hapa Jac shirt is showcased alongside more than 50 other garments in the Honolulu Museum of Art’s “Fashioning Aloha” exhibit. At right, a late 1950s Kahala tunic top for women from the HoMA exhibit. | Photo courtesy: HoMA.

So the clothes can be accessible to all on the web, Reilly is starting to digitize pictures from the collection, like palaka shirts worn by plantation workers in the 1940s and shirts made from rice bags in the 1950s. For now, access to the collection is solely through Reilly, and his busy schedule allows only an hour or so a week to accommodate visitors.

Old styles are coming back, Akiona says. “It’s kind of a new trend. It just reminds people of what fashion was years ago before it got all modern. … It’s just a reminder of their kūpuna.”

Kahala and Tori Richard are among the local companies bringing back historic designs and selling them as collector’s editions.

“We are always looking to our extensive archive of thousands of prints dating back to 1936 for inspiration,” says Park, the Kahala director. “A lot of what makes Kahala special is reintroducing our heritage prints to a new generation of aloha shirt fans.”

HoMA’s Laitila says that in his eyes, nostalgia will always be trendy, “whether you’re looking back on your parents or your grandparents.” At least 20 years must pass before nostalgia sets in, he says.

But the aloha shirt itself is a Hawai‘i icon, and Laitila predicts that won’t change.

“I know that fast fashion does exist, but there is opposition to fast fashion. So having clothes that are well made, and that can be serviced, is desirable, and a lot of our alohawear is. I know some sons that have inherited their fathers’ and grandfathers’ shirts, and they wear them proudly.”