MEN'S TREND Aloha shirt makes fashion statement: Relax and be happy

What began as a tourist gimmick has turned into a worldwide phenomenon.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Kaleidoscopic, gossamer, whimsical, they have granted us refuge from "progress" year after year, decade after decade, good times and bad, when almost everything else has succumbed.
Obsolete? Not once in almost 75 years have you been able to say that about aloha shirts. In or out of fashion? What else can a man wear to stand so brazenly apart from the very idea of "fashion"?
Gentlemen, it's time to contemplate the happiest things in our wardrobes. Must we put them away for the season?
Not a chance. Let's remember how the aloha shirt -- use it interchangeably with "Hawaiian shirt" if you desire -- came to be and what it is meant to signify.
"How do you put away an attitude? How do you put away a feeling?" asked Dale Hope, a shirt designer who grew up in Hawaii's apparel business and wrote its authoritative cultural history, "The Aloha Shirt: Spirit of the Islands."
Liberating look
Hope has an advantage. He lives in Hawaii. On the 80-degree islands, year-round wear of Hawaiian shirts is de rigueur -- although workplace dress codes generally require men to, oh no, tuck them in. But Hope also designs aloha prints for the broader market at Patagonia, the adventure apparel company, and understands that Hawaiian shirts are no longer a niche business but "a worldwide phenomenon."
Dressed in a lime-and-red-and-white shirt from the 1960s, Hope was interviewed at Duke's Canoe Club on Waikiki, a place where the only way to stand out would be to wear a white dress shirt. For Hawaiians and those who visit the islands, Hawaiian shirts have a specific geographic meaning. In the larger world, they also unavoidably speak -- and speak loudly -- of the "spirit" at the heart of Polynesian myths.
"Relax, be at ease, have some fun." That's Hope's philosophy, expressed variously by 100 shirts in his closet and his ongoing campaign to get aloha shirts on a series of U.S. postage stamps.
"Have you noticed that people who wear them are more relaxed?" asked George Michael, a Waikiki artist. Clad in a shirt with a blue hibiscus print, he added: "As bright and colorful as they are, they don't have an in-your-face attitude. You meet someone wearing a Hawaiian shirt and nine times out of 10, they're going to be a little more down to earth."
For the tourist trade
Aloha shirts were devised by Oahu tailors in the 1930s to please tourists who wanted to escape the itchy, constricting white-shirt-and-coat leisure wear of the era. The loose cut was liberating. Rayon caressed sunburned skin. Patterns and colors were like nothing that American men had known. Following the axiom that good things take on a life of their own, Hawaiian shirts spread, and by the '50s were an indelible part of California's culture too.
More recently, the aloha shirt took a big step toward national respectability thanks to Tommy Bahama, the resort-wear manufacturer that spread across the country by, ironically, turning its back on the shirt's Hawaiian heritage. Instead, the company calls its muted shirts "island" clothing, suitable "on the beaches of Bermuda or in the jungles of New York City." Even die-hard Hawaiian traditionalists grant that Tommy Bahama has been not only a marketing marvel but also a pioneer in the use of ever more refined silk fabrics.
Through the seasons
Back to autumn. So how can you get away with a short-sleeved shirt when the calendar turns?
One strategy is to top it off with a blazer. This adds a touch of decorum for year-round service in the office too, an easygoing take on Hollywood's Armani-jacket-and-tee look. If you must, you can tuck in the shirt -- although you will certainly strike a more "on duty" posture.
Another strategy for cooler weather comes from Boston, where a one-time vice president for an investment bank has revived the idea of the custom-made aloha shirt. "Being from New England, I've had to think hard about this," allowed Katie Tiger, whose two-person, high-end aloha shirt company, Kool Kat fashions, is almost 18 months old. "The answer is simple: long sleeves."
Although she's never been to Hawaii -- not until next year -- Tiger carefully studied the history of Hawaiian shirts. Long-sleeve versions were originally popular and considered more "formal."
But there is a caveat to her advice: One must pick prints cautiously for long sleeves. Busy floral and "theme" prints can bear an unfortunate resemblance to pajama tops when fully sleeved. Better to keep things simple, such as vertical border patterns. From Southern California comes a contrasting view of the seasons.
With a year-round inventory of 2,000 or so shirts, Stephen Gih barely worries about the calendar. Autumn, after all, can produce some of the region's most beguiling weather. Then, the holidays. "Christmas is our second-busiest season," enthused the second-generation proprietor of Paradise Bound. This store has been specializing in aloha wear since 1965, first in Fullerton and now in Long Beach's Belmont Shore, and is considered by aficionados and manufacturers to be one of the top retailers on the mainland.