Waikiki 76 Hawaiian Shirt

I came across this green shirt with interesting designs, including tikis. While I liked the design, I didn't buy it because of the material and where it was manufactured.

The shirt has a label from Waikiki 76. It is 100% crepe polyester and was made in Korea. It has four large, wooden buttons with vertical button holes. No collar loop and a semi-matching pocket.

An online search of "Waikiki 76" brings up a few shirts on Ebay and Etsy, all of which are made from polyester. Interestingly, the other shirts have a rectangular label, but the one I found has a trapezoidal shaped one.

A search of the RN shows Waikiki 76's parent company was Dongwha USA Enterprise Co., located at 900 Wilshire Blvd in Los Angeles. I couldn't find much more about this company; the name Dongwha is used in several Korean companies, and there is no clear connection between the manufacturer of the shirt and these other companies. And there is no apparent connection to Hawaii.

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.

Alfred Shaheen Exhibit Gallery Guide

I ordered a copy of the gallery guide for the Alfred Shaheen exhibit at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, which ran in 2010. Unfortunately the guide does not have photos of the exhibit items, but there are text descriptions of the items that include dates and fabrics. 

This guide should be a great help in dating fabrics. Many of the reference books I've seen seem rather subjective on the topic of dating. Since this is guide is for a museum exhibit, I'll consider it authoritatively vetted over other references. :)

You can order a copy from the museum's online store

Cotton vs. Polyester

I suppose polyester is the pariah of fabrics. This synthetic may never get away from its image of 1970s double-knit, leisure suit fashion. But polyester has a place in the history of Aloha shirts, whether we like it or not. Starting in at least the 1970s, clothing designers began to use either 100% polyester or a polyester blend in some of their fabrics. It seems the pure polyester fabrics were more prevalent in the 70s, as what I encounter for later-era shirts are mostly poly/cotton blends.

I suspect most purists will reject any shirt as vintage if it has any polyester in it. So if you are trying to create some criteria of what "vintage" means, then it may be fair to say any shirt with this synthetic fabric is excluded from this coveted criteria. But do note that rayon, while completely accepted as a vintage fabric, is also a synthetic.

So what if you encounter a shirt without a fabric label that might be polyester? Is there a definitive test? I had such an encounter with this shirt.

I found this shirt at a thrift store. I suspected it was at least part polyester, but there were some attributes to it that had me think it might be from the 1960s. The label was missing, but it appeared to be a full-sewn in one, that is indicative of a vintage shirt. The metal buttons also had a vintage patina to them.

The fabric of the shirt was very light weight. All of the 1970s polyester shirts I've seen tended to be heavier weight. The weight of the fabric felt like a woman's summer scarf - very light and airy. Upon closer inspection, there seemed to be surface imperfections to the fabric, which are indicative this was not polyester. The shirt, while soft, didn't didn't seem to have a richness that you find in silk or rayon. But the shirt appeared to have been starched, which might account for the coarseness.

The fabric had a wavy look that suggested this might be imperfections.

My rule is if I have doubts on the vintage of a shirt, then pass on it. But I was intrigued by this shirt for some reason although I had my doubts. There were a few other clues as well. I tightly squeezed the fabric to see if it would hold wrinkles. Silk and rayon will hold wrinkles while polyesters won't (or so I've been told). Sure enough it did hold some wrinkles, but not a lot. So this test was inconclusive.

So I opted to pony up the four dollars and get it and find out more about this item. After bringing it home, I hand-washed the shirt to see of the coarseness (that I attributed to a possible starching) would go away. No dice. Upon further inspection of the loose threads on the inside seam, I saw some unraveling that looked more like fuzziness than stringiness. Ok, this really suggested polyester. But there was one definite test left.

I snipped off some loose threads from the seams and but them in a fireproof container (in this case, the bottom of an empty soda can). I then applied a flame in the definitive "fire test". If a fabric is silk, then it will burn to ashes and smell like burning hair. But if the fabric is polyester, then it will melt and smell like burning plastic.

The flame test.

I think my sample was too small to detect a smell, but the thread burned down to a tiny ball of hardened plastic. This was definitely polyester. In retrospect, the fuzziness of the unraveled fabric was likely a solid clue that the shirt was indeed polyester. So a lesson learned as to the value of carefully examining the seams.

The Aloha Shirt book

As it turned out, I already had Dale Hope's book The Aloha Shirt sitting on my bookshelf when I started collecting vintage Aloha shirts. I don't recall when I bought it or how long it sat there collecting dust. But this book turned out to be a great reference to learn about the history and evolution of Hawaiian shirts.

The bulk of the book is to relate the chronology of Aloha shirts, from its roots in early Polynesian culture to the present day. Hope discusses the somewhat murky origins of the shirts, going from the palaka, to the early tailors in Chinatown that were the source of the first recognizable Aloha shirts. He goes on to discuss the evolution of the shirts from a largely island phenomena to an internationally recognized fashion style.

For the collector, there are numerous photos of vintage shirts from the early days, some labels, and perhaps in some sort of meta-reference, a discussion of collectors. If you are looking for a reference book on collecting shirts, this probably won't be for you. But I do think this book is a must for anybody interested learning about the history and nature of the Hawaiian shirt. Highly recommended to have on your bookshelf.

Liberty House and assorted labels

I made a run today to see what I could unearth. I found a few items from the 1970s but nothing worth picking up. 

My first find was a Tori Richard for Liberty House shirt. Liberty House is one of the venerable vintage Aloha shirt labels, but the were still around at least until the early 1990s. And Liberty House opened Mainland stores in the 1970s, although all were closed by the end of the decade. I checked out this co-branded label and have found a pretty wide range of guesses. One Ebay seller had a shirt with the label and dated it early 1960s, which I think is waaaay off. The Museum of Hawaiian Shirts has a non co-branded version of the label as 1967, and another version (without the trademark symbol and with "Honolulu") as from the 1970s. My guess, based on the label configuration and patina of the shirt, I would agree with the 1970s date.

I found a second co-branded shirt for Liberty House. I couldn't discern the name of the manufacture: Mark Raynton, Mark Rayiton, or Mark Rayrton. I suspect the first, but I couldn't find anything about this guy. The shirt felt like it was 100% polyester, which would date it to the 1970s. The shirt also had four buttons, suggesting it is older than the 1980s. 

The fabric label was missing and I'm a bit wary about trying to discern polyester by touch. I picked up a Lauhala shirt that I first thought was polyester. The fabric had a shine to it and it felt rather slippery to the touch. But the fabric label did say 100% cotton and I suspect it is some kind of high-quality weave. From what I can tell, the polyester of the Liberty House shirt has a lighter weight to it than the cotton Lauhala.

This last shirt is new, but it highlights a potential risk to new collectors. The label has a retro look to it, but this shirt is not only vintage, it wasn't even made in Hawaii. Upon closer look, you can see this shirt was made in Pakistan. Labels can be tricky to master, so beware in relying on just the design of the label.

I wonder if the crescent moon on the label has anything to do with the fact this shirt was made in a Muslim country.

Hawaii Togs Muumuu

Ok, so I made my first foray into vintage Aloha dresses. I picked up a lovely barkcloth muumuu for a mere $5.00. A really, really big muumuu at that. At first look it seems to be 1960s. But if you make a closer examination, there is much more here than first meets the eye.

The dress has the manufacturer tag as well as a cardboard product tag that has fabric, style, size, and RN number information. But the cardboard tag is not a fabric care label. And interestingly, there is a price tag still attached to the back! The tags have the following information:

Manufacturer tag
An Original
Hawaiian Togs
Made in Hawaii
Size 18

Product tag
100% Acrylic
Illegible printed text
Style: C (in pencil)
Size: 18
RN 23746

Ok, so we have some information to start with. Hawaiian Togs was the manufacturer and I've seen this label come up on eBay and some vintage clothing retailer sites. The RN number tells us the company, once located at 1528 Makaloa Street in Honolulu, had their RN number issued sometime around 1962.

The dress is clearly old. The muslin lining has a patina of age and has darkened. At first look I would say this dress was early 1960s. But there are a couple of things about the dress that might indicate otherwise. First, the Product tag says the material is acrylic. Now the rule-of-thumb I use with Aloha shirts is if the shirt has polyester, then it was most likely 1970s or later. However, I don't know much about acrylic. According to this article, arcrylic was created by DuPont in 1944 and was first made commercially in 1950.

The second odd thing is the zipper. The rule-of-thumb I've used is if the zipper is metal, then it dated from the 1960s or earlier. But this dress has a nylon zipper. Ok, so does this mean the dress is later vintage, was the zipper replaced, or is the use of nylon zippers actually older than I first thought? 

Answering the second question is probably the easiest. I looked very closely at the stitching holding the zipper to the dress. At the top of the zipper is a eye-hook closure. This closure has a patina and that discolored the fabric, so it is clear the eye-hook is original to the dress. The stitching between the eye-hook and zipper does not appear to have been disrupted, so it seems the zipper has not been replaced since the dress was first made. 

Answering the third question is also fairly easy. Were nylon zippers used in the 1960s? A search of several vintage clothing sites shows that nylon zippers were used in clothing as early as the late 1950s, although they were not very common. This website says nylon zippers began to displace metal zippers after 1963. I looked at the zipper to see if I could identify the manufacturer. I first thought I saw a symbol of a crown, and there is a zipper company called Crown. But upon closer look, it wasn't a crown but rather a shield-shaped symbol with USA stamped within. There is a Flikr site here that has photos of vintage zippers. Some of the zippers are of the nylon type. I'm certainly no expert on either zippers or zipper packaging, so I'll have to accept from multiple sources that nylon zippers were indeed used in the 1960s.

So that leaves the first question. Is the dress of later vintage than the 1960s? There is one more clue to examine. The seams are pinked. According to this website, pinked seams were common in 1950s era clothes, but were displaced by serged seams in the 1960s. It is impossible to tell if Hawaii Togs still pinked the seams of their clothing in the 1960s, but this information suggests serged seams became increasingly common as time progressed. I can only surmise that the later the dress, the less likely it would have pinked seams.

So looking at the totality of the evidence: the nylon zipper, the acrylic fabric, the shape of the manufacturer tag, the RN number, and the seams, I would venture this dress is mid to late-1960s. And as I first mentioned, this dress still has the original price tag and it sold for $29.95. So if the dress was sold for this price in 1967, adjusted for inflation, this dress would sell for $205.88 today! So is this a further clue? Two-hundred dollars for a muumuu seems really high. But I can't tell if the price tag is original to the dress, so I'm going to stick with the original estimate.