Royal Hawaiian Shirt

I picked up this lovely shirt by Royal Hawaiian at a vintage clothing store. I found it right as the store was closing, so I only had a chance to give it a cursory inspection. Aside from one mismatched button, the shirt seemed to be in good shape until I got it home. Upon closer look, I realized the shirt once had a collar loop that was now gone. >:-(

In fact both the collar loop and the corresponding button were removed at some point. You can still see the remaining button threads under the collar. Maybe somebody wanted to streamline the look of the shirt? Didn't like the loop? Or perhaps the button came off and the previous owner decided to just cut off the loop rather than replace the button? Who knows. But otherwise, the shirt is in quite good condition. 

The shirt itself is barkcloth with five vertical button holes, large-sized Asian buttons, and it is really large - like an XXXL in modern day sizing. Most shirts of this period have four button holes, so I wonder if the extra large size required an additional button. The shirt has a triangular, loop-style label that reads "Royal Hawaiian - Made and Styled in Hawaii". The fabric is printed with "G.V.H. Hawaiianprints" on the seam.

A curious thing about the buttons. The original buttons are a bit large at 1.5 cm in diameter. Asian-style buttons on other shirts I have come in at around 1.2 cm. The replacement button is quite small in comparison, but is Asian style. I don't think I've ever seen Hawaiian shirt-styled Asian buttons for sale on the mainland, so this leaves me to speculate if the replacement button was sewn on in Hawaii(?).

Original button on left, replacement button on right.

Royal Hawaiian

Royal Hawaiian was founded in 1937 by Max Lewis, and the factory was located on Beretania Street. In 1947 Royal Hawaiian was acquired by Watumull and moved to their location at 1166 Fort Street. From what I gather, Watumull continued to manufacture clothing under the Royal Hawaiian label, although I do not know for how long. Watumull also sold clothing (including Hawaiian shirts) under the Watumull label as well.

Royal Hawaiian used at least two different designs for their label. The shirt I have has a variant of the Royal Seal of Hawaii (a similar seal was used for Duke Kahanamoku labels). There is another version that has palm trees in front of a beach with islands in the background.

Royal Hawaiian label with a stylized version of the Hawaiian Royal Seal.

All of Royal Hawaiian's clothing was sold at Watumull's East India Stores. By the mid 1960s Watumull had at least several retail locations throughout Hawaii. However, it appears these stores only offered clothing under the Watumull label.

Watumull's East India Store, from the 3 June 1937 edition of the Honolulu-Advertiser.

G.V.H. Hawaiiprint

I wasn't able to find much about G.V.H. Hawaiiprints. I did a search and found this company sold Hawaiian print fabrics in bolts and you can find vendors on Etsy and Ebay offering fabrics under the GVH Hawaiiprints name. I also found another Hawaiian shirt with a similar print to my shirt, but has a Made in Hawaii label. Whether Royal Hawaiian made this shirt under the Made in Hawaii label, or G.V.H. sold similar fabric to another manufacturer is unknown.

Kimi's Hawaiian Shirt

I recently picked up this Hawaiian shirt made by Kimi's. There was an additional label beneath the manufacturer's label that is now gone. The shirt appears to be 100% cotton with four bronze colored asian metal buttons, vertical button holes, and collar loop. Oh, and it is really, really pink. Ok, maybe salmon.

Kimi's shirt in its wrinkled, freshly discovered glory.

I haven't been able to find much on Kimi's. I checked for label examples in several reference books, but nothing turned up. My guess is that Kimi's is one of those small brands that never got a whole lot of visibility. It is important to know that Kimi is a fairly common name for Asian women in Hawaii. It might be derived from Kimiko.

An Etsy search turned up a couple of dresses with a different designed Kimi's label. This one says "Kimi's at Kings Alley, Waikiki, Sandwich Islands". So this gives us clues to help garner some information. Lets break this down a bit to see what information we can extract.

Kimi's label from dress found on Etsy.

King's Alley (now called King's Village) is a shopping center located at the corner of Kaiulani Avenue and Koa Avenue. The center was completed in 1972 according to the Honolulu Star Bulletin. So if the Kimi's label in the shirt is the same business as that on the dress, then we can surmise that Kimi's was around at least since the early 1970s. 

But a closer look at the Kimi's label in the shirt I picked up suggests that it is older than the one in the dress. The shirt label is white with black palm trees and a stylized font, very typical of 1960s and earlier design. The Etsy dress has an older-fashioned style font, similar to that found in the late 1800s. King's Alley was themed to represent Hawaii in the late 1890s and the font from the dress label seems to coincide with the theme.

Kimi's label. 1960s version?

 A search of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin archives has a 1999 article that mentions a clothing store at the Maunakea Marketplace called Kimi's that was still in business. However, there is no indication this store sold branded clothing under their name, and I suspect it has nothing to do with the Kimi's branded clothing.

So what I surmise from the available evidence is that Kimi's had a retail store in King's Alley at least in the 1970s. But the different style label of my shirt suggests that Kimi's was around before that time. I speculate that the shirt is an earlier Kimi's product (and likely from a different location). Based on the construction, cut, and patina, I'm guessing early to mid-1960s. 

One final note, I hand-washed the shirt in cold water (like I do with all of my shirts). This shirt bled a bit, leading a friend to speculate whether this shirt was originally white in color. If you note, the shirt has vertical stripes of different shades of pink (ok, salmon). Is it possible this shirt was originally white and red, and that the dye bled and tinted the white? A men's shirt this pink (salmon!) seems a bit unusual. But the coloration seems pretty even, so I'm guessing the answer is no, it wasn't originally white.