We mostly buy Hawaiian shirts that are made in Hawaii because these have the most interesting, well executed prints and highest quality fabrics. This is because they have been making them there since the early part of the 20^th century and generations of artisans have passed on the trade.

Australia Vintage Hawaiian Shirt

Hawaiian shirts, formally known as "aloha shirts," were never designed with "fashion" in mind. Aloha shirts, in all their brightly coloured, energetically printed, fabulously tacky, once-kitschy beauty, are still seen on the street and on the runways today. The aloha shirt, on the other hand, has a history that is both complex and interesting. The origins of these shirts are from the intricate motifs of Japanese Art and also Korean and Chinese. During the 1930’s and 40’s they became very popular with US serviceman, many of who returned to the mainland USA with an exotic Aloha Shirt in tow. In the 1950’s the Hawaiian shirt became more elevated in status, after Elvis Presley wore Alfred Shaheen’s designs in the movie Blue Hawaii. In 1966, a 21-year-old heartthrob, Leonardo DiCaprio gave the shirt a hit of sex appeal in Romeo and Juliet and Tom Selleck famously wore floral-printed styles in the 1980 TV series Magnum, P.I. The style became more sophisticated and veered away from the loud, bold patterns and colours for a time. These days, mass Chinese manufacturers are producing Hawaiian shirts for companies such as K-Mart and Big W. If you compare these to a good authentic vintage Hawaiian shirt, they are soulless and sad.

Vintage Hawaiian Shirt Online

A good Hawaiian shirt will always have real coconut buttons, which is a great way of using a natural by-product, local to the area they are made in. It’s a good environmental choice. We love rayon Hawaiian shirts. These are super soft, are a mostly natural fiber, are breathable and moisture resistant, don’t crease easily and can hold very rich colour in them. In the 1980’s Hawaiian shirts morphed into the abstract Aloha shirt, which uses many of the same elements of a Hawaiian shirt, such as cut, fabric and the use of coconut buttons, but the prints became more abstract. Pastel shades were very popular, gelati colours of pink, blue, green and yellow. Then into the 1990’s energetic, dark toned primitive prints became popular. Many of the USA brands took the time to produce seriously good stuff, experimenting with block printing, which was used by more traditional cultures in textile designs. Tori Richards, a Hawaiian company that has been around since the 1950’s made some wonderful prints during this period. In 2016 spring/summer, the men’s collection have seen an abundance of aloha shirts from Saint Laurent’s grungy Kurt Cobain inspired to Dries Van Noten’s mixed print variant. The popularity of the aloha shirt can be explained by the fact that we all want to wear a piece of paradise.