Wednesday, 3 December 2025 - 11:00 am (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination: North America / Nordamerika Category/Kategorie: GeneralReading Time: 5minutes
The aloha shirt (Hawaiian: palaka aloha), also referred to as a Hawaiian shirt, is a style of dress shirt originating in Hawaii. They are collared and buttoned dress shirts, usually short-sleeved and made from printed fabric. They are traditionally worn untucked, but can be worn tucked into the waist of trousers. They are worn casually or as informal business attire in Hawaii.
“Aloha Friday”, or Casual Friday, a now-common tradition of celebrating the end of the workweek by wearing more casual attire on Fridays, initially grew out of an effort to promote aloha shirts.
According to some sources, the origin of aloha shirts can be traced to the 1920s or the early 1930s, when the Honolulu-based dry goods store “Musa-Shiya the Shirtmaker” under the proprietorship of Kōichirō Miyamoto, started making shirts out of colorful Japanese prints. It has also been contended that the aloha shirt was devised in the early 1930s by Chinese merchant Ellery Chun of “King-Smith Clothiers and Dry Goods”, a store in Waikiki. Although this claim has been described as a myth reinforced by repeated telling, Chun may have been the first to mass-produce or to maintain the ready-to-wear in stock to be sold off the shelf.
The name “aloha shirt” appeared later. By 1935 and 1936, the word aloha was being attached to various sorts of Hawaiian products, so calling the garments “aloha shirts” was hardly original. The term aloha shirt first appeared in print in an advertisement for Musa-Shiya in the June 28, 1935 issue of The Honolulu Advertiser newspaper. However, Ellery Chun is sometimes credited for coining the term, perhaps in 1933; Chun’s store reportedly carried window signs that said “aloha shirts”. The term “aloha sportswear” was registered as a trademark by Chun’s company in 1936, followed by Chun trademarking “Aloha Shirt” in 1937 and owning the rights to this appellation for the next 20 years.
Aloha dress shirts are printed, mostly short-sleeved, and collared. They almost always have buttons, sometimes for the entire length of the shirt or at least up to the chest. They usually have a left chest pocket sewn in, often with attention to ensure the printed pattern remains continuous. Aloha shirts may be worn by men or women. Women’s aloha shirts usually have a lower-cut, v-neck style.
The lower hems are straight, and the shirts are often worn with the shirt-tails hanging out, rather than tucked in. Wearing an untucked shirt was possibly influenced by the local Filipinos who wore shirt-tail out, and called these bayau meaning “friend”. Wearing it untucked or tucked depends on personal taste; it carries the same connotations of tucking or untucking a polo shirt. In the 1950s, the shirt became allowed as business attire for aloha week, but only if worn tucked in.
Traditional men’s aloha shirts are usually adorned with traditional Hawaiian quilt designs, tapa designs, and simple floral patterns in more muted colors. Contemporary aloha shirts may have prints that do not feature any traditional Hawaiian quilt or floral designs but instead may incorporate drinks, palm trees, surf boards or other island tropical elements in a similar form as the traditional aloha shirt.
It has been observed that locals (kamaʻāina) tended to shy away from the garishness of aloha shirts as “too wild” when they first appeared, whereas tourists embraced wearing designs of many bright colors. An example of the type of shirt the locals may prefer includes the “reverse print”; these shirts are often printed on the interior, resulting in the muted color on the exterior.
