Malikini for Liberty House Dresses

I found a lovely pair of vintage Hawaiian dresses, the second such find in three days. The dress are both from Malikini for Liberty House.

The first dress is a red and white pull-over dress. The second is a navy blue and white dress with a back zipper. The zipper is a nylon one. Both dresses have the same style of Malikini for Liberty House labels and they were obviously owned by the same person.

Red Malikini for Liberty House dress.

Blue Malikini for Liberty House dress.

 The labels seem to be of a more modern design than other Malikini labels I've seen. The stylized purple, black, and orange "M" is much more modern than the palm tree and hibiscus images seen on older labels. Both dresses are 100% polyester. So the zipper style, label design, and fabric strongly indicate a date of the 1970s.

Malikini Sportswear was founded just after World War Two and was located at 746 Ilaniwai Street in Honolulu. They opened a retail women's clothing store in the Moanalua Shopping Center in 1964. Liberty House was a retailer that began in the mid-1800s. By the mid-1960s there were three or four Liberty House stores in Hawaii. They expanded to the mainland in the early 1970s but encountered financial difficulties by the end of the decade. Liberty House was eventually acquired by the early 1980s.

Lauhala Dress

I recently came across this Asian style dress by Lauhala. The fabric is, unfortunately, all polyester. This particular dress is style 4128. The label says "over" but I didn't flip it to see the other side. A potential clue for more information about the dress?

The dress has a Mandarin style collar and interesting bat wing-style sleeves. This kind of sleeve seemed to be popular from at least the 1940s, although I haven't seen any contemporary dresses with this style. The front opening has an interesting decorative piece - not exactly a bow, but sort of like a stiff ribbon. I've seen this same style of decoration on a Hawaiian Togs dress.

I have a Lauhala shirt and I've seen a couple of Lauhala label styles, but I haven't seen this kind before. The label is larger and more elaborate than others I've seen, with two-color embroidery. Based on the more "modern" label and the polyester fabric, I would place this dress around the early to mid-1970s.

Lauhala started as a sportswear manufacturer in 1943. Their headquarters was at 1722 Kalakaua Avenue and subsequently opened another in Hanapepe around 1965. 

A bit of trivia regarding the name of the company. The plant embroidered on the label is a Pandanus. This plant looks sort of like a cross between a palm and a mangrove and it has a fruit that looks somewhat like a pineapple. Lauhala is the Hawaiian word for Pandanus leaves used in weaving.

Master Book of Hawaiian Shirt

If you can read Japanese, then you are in luck. Master Book of Hawaiian Shirt is probably the best and most comprehensive book on vintage Hawaiian shirts that I've come across so far.

This book is a soup-to-nuts assessment of Hawaiian shirt history, design, and manufacturing. You will find photos and text discussing:

• Hawaiian shirt history
• Fabrics
• Buttons
• Labels
• Individual designers (with photos of the designers as well as samples of their shirts)
• Manufacturing
• Prints and print styles
• Collectors

The book delves fairly deep into teach of the topics, so this isn't just a picture book but one that is chock full of real information. The trick is, of course, is that it is all in Japanese.

There is a book called Aloha Style: Master Book of Hawaiian Shirt 2. I don't know if this is a follow-up book or possibly a rebranded version of the original. Either way, this book is worth having.