The U.S. Post Office issued stamps earlier this year commemorating my favorite form of casual-ware, the aloha shirt. Each of the 5 stamps in the series depicts a different classic shirt: two show surfers and their boards; another fossil fish, shells, and sea stars, one the bird of paradise flower, and the last the Kilauea [...]
After spending time at events like Hukilau, I’ve deduced that hardcore tiki fans must put a lot of effort into finding vintage aloha shirts to impress each other. But what if you’re just getting started? Or what if you don’t have hundreds of dollars to spend on a collection?
Bad Shirt Good Times has the solution: [...]
For the life of me, I can’t think of a legitimate reason anyone would need to buy a dozen rubber ducks in aloha shirts, leis, and grass skirts, but there is something oddly irresistible about them.
For a moment, I thought one might make an interesting garnish in a bowl drink, but then I read that [...]
NPR is running a cute story today on how the Aloha Shirt is contributing to help solve Japan’s power woes after many power plants were shut down in the wake of the recent tsunami.
Government ministries are under orders to conserve office power any way possible, including shutting down elevators, shifting work hours to take advantage [...]
Like most people that appreciate tiki, I love aloha shirts. Although I can’t yet afford the amazing silk super-vintage shirts that collectors flock to, I am able to appreciate them, in printed form, thanks to The Art of the Aloha Shirt by authors DeSoto Brown, Ph.D. and Linda Boynton Arthur.
The 100-page hardcover book is filled [...]
If you’ve ever had the desire to create a one-off, totally custom aloha shirt or dress, I have some good news for you: the technology is finally available to print directly on textiles from an uploaded file.
Spoonflower uses large-format inkjet printers modified to print directly on fabric. Prices range from $18/yard to $32/yard depending [...]
Tiki Kiliki, organizer of Hukilau, the yearly east-coast tiki get-together, just announced that tiki/lowbrow artist/super-hipster Shag has designed a souvenir aloha shirt and dress for this year’s event.
The fabric design features images specific to the event and the Mai Kai restaurant, the officially-unofficial epicenter of the event, including the Mystery Girl, the signature Cannibals [...]