Why Hawaiian shirts – or Aloha shirts – have a strong Chinese link and a colourful past
- It was Chinese-American Ellery Chun who first stamped his mark on Hawaiian shirts when in 1936 he registered the term ‘Aloha shirt’
- But there are other people who claim to have invented the garment, including two Japanese shirtmakers and a local Hawaiian
The story of the Hawaiian shirt is, rather aptly, a colourful one.
The garment of choice for stoned surfers and travellers to the tropics, the shirt – also known as the Aloha shirt – has also inspired collections from fast-fashion labels H&M and Zara to luxury brands Prada and Valentino.
Over the decades, it has spent a lot of time basking in the pop-culture sun. Nothing screamed the ’80s quite as loud as Tom Selleck’s red Hawaiian shirt in the hit TV series Magnum, P.I., while Elvis Presley rocked them in the 1961 flick Blue Hawaii.
Screen legends Frank Sinatra and Burt Lancaster wore them in the 1953 classic From Here to Eternity, while a new wave of movie stars including Christian Slater (1993’s True Romance), Brad Pitt (1999’s Fight Club) and Johnny Depp (1998’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) gave them a cool edge during the ’90s.
Depp even took several Hawaiian shirts from the collection of Hunter S. Thompson, who wrote the book that Fear and Loathing was based on, when he was living with the author while preparing for his role.
Singer Justin Bieber mastered the look for the millennials, showcasing enough aloha shirts last year to give an ’80s South Beach coke dealer a run for their money.