The Aloha Shirt: How 1930s Honolulu Turned Japanese Kimono Cloth into America's Most Joyful Garment

On June 28, 1935, a small Honolulu tailor named Koichiro Miyamoto placed an advertisement in the Honolulu Advertiser for his shop, Musa-Shiya Shoten, billing himself as "Honolulu's Noted Shirt Maker and Kimono Shop." The ad offered shirts cut from colorful Japanese kimono cloth, and it is the first documented printed use of the term that would define a garment: the aloha shirt. The story of how a piece of Japanese yukata fabric, cut by a Chinese-born merchant, and dyed in Hawaiian color became one of the most recognizable garments in the world is a story of immigration, thrift, and the particular genius of a small island in the middle of the Pacific.

The Roots: Japanese Cloth and Hawaiian Light

No single person invented the aloha shirt, and historians have spent decades arguing over who deserves the credit. The strongest documented claim belongs to Ellery J. Chun, the son of Chinese immigrants, who returned to Honolulu after graduating from Yale in 1931 to manage his family's dry goods store. According to his 2000 obituary in The New York Times, Chun saw local Japanese teenagers wearing shirts sewn from rayon and Filipino boys in colorful barong shirts, and decided to have shirts cut from flashy Japanese kimono material. He changed his store's name to King-Smith Clothiers and displayed the shirts in the window under a sign reading "Aloha Shirts," registering the trademark "Aloha Sportswear" in 1936 and "Aloha Shirt" in 1937. As Chun told the Atlanta Journal and Constitution in 1976, "there was no authentic Hawaiian material in those days so I bought the most brilliant and gaudy Japanese kimono material, designed the shirts, and had a tailor make a few dozen."

The earliest shirts were recognizably Japanese in motif. Pagodas, maple leaves, and bonsai trees populated the first prints, a reflection of the yukata cloth from which they were cut. Only later did designers incorporate Hawaiian imagery — palm trees, surfboards, hibiscus, outrigger canoes — in what came to be called "hash prints," assembled from whatever was left over. As textile historian Linda Arthur wrote in The Art of the Aloha Shirt, the garment is "a visible symbol of multi-ethnic heritage," made with a Western shape, Japanese fabric, Chinese tailors, and Filipino style.

From Plantation to Mainstream

The aloha shirt's ancestor is the palaka, a blue-and-white checked woven shirt first imported for Hawaiian plantation workers at the turn of the twentieth century. After World War II, American servicemen returned to the mainland wearing aloha shirts bought in Honolulu, and the garment crossed the Pacific for good. The manufacturer Alfred Shaheen, who began business in 1948, elevated the shirt into wearable art by hiring fine artists to design his prints; it was Shaheen's "Tiare Tapa" shirt that Elvis Presley wore on the cover of the 1961 album Blue Hawaii.

In 1962, the Hawaii state legislature passed a resolution encouraging aloha wear in the workplace, and the "Aloha Friday" custom — the ancestor of the modern Casual Friday — grew out of an effort to promote the shirts as acceptable business attire. By the 1960s, locals and tourists alike had adopted the garment, though the two groups often chose very different prints.

Practical Guidance: Wearing One Well

A good aloha shirt is cut from rayon, silk, or high-quality cotton, not the stiff polyester that flooded the market in the 1970s. The fit should be relaxed but not baggy, the hem meant to be worn untucked. The print should run continuously across the chest pocket, a mark of careful construction. For a refined look, choose the "reverse print," printed on the interior so the exterior reads as a muted, sun-faded version of the pattern. The most wearable shirts favor traditional tapa, quilt, and botanical motifs over garish novelty prints.

Related Reading

The aloha shirt sits alongside other garments born of work and climate that became fashion staples — our guide to the [resort wear wardrobe](/lifestyle/resort-wear-guide-how-to-dress-luxury-holiday-effortless-style) and our piece on [dressing for a champagne brunch](/lifestyle/how-to-dress-for-a-champagne-brunch) cover the broader art of dressing for warm-weather leisure, while our [denim guide](/lifestyle/denim-guide-from-workwear-to-luxury-staple) traces a similar journey from workwear to luxury.

Reference Links

- Aloha shirt (origin, Musa-Shiya, Ellery Chun, Alfred Shaheen): [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_shirt)

- The Not-So-Chill History of Hawaii's Breeziest Shirt (Ellery Chun, Musa-Shiya): [Atlas Obscura](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/history-of-aloha-hawaiian-shirt)

- The Aloha Shirt: Spirit of the Islands (Dale Hope, Musa-Shiya 1935 ad): [Patagonia Stories](https://www.patagonia.com/stories/culture/community/the-aloha-shirt-spirit-of-the-islands/story-31160.html)

- Ellery J. Chun and his dapper invention, the Aloha Shirt: [The Postman on Holiday](https://thepostmanonholiday.com/2023/09/01/ellery-j-chun-and-his-dapper-invention-the-aloha-shirt/)