The Aloha Shirt

History of "Aloha" Shirts

This is a respectful attempt to explain the origin of the Aloha shirt or in Hawaiian "palaka aloha" 

First lets wrap our minds around the weather of Hawaii and is surrounding islands

Naturally we begin in Honolulu where the summers are extremely oppressive to anyone outdoors, looking through the year in temperatures it varies from 68 degrees F - 87 degress F

Humidity:

 Jan 12.4d 

Feb 9.2d

Mar 9.5d

Apr 10.5d

May 15.6d

Jun 21.2d

Jul 26.4d

Aug 28.2d

Sep 27.9d

Oct 27.4d

Nov 21.5d

Dec 15.7d 

After considering how humid that is as well as the constant bombardment of naturally salt winds directly from the ocean one would need a light loose short sleeve shirt of some sorts

Since these shirts originated during the 1920's or 1930's you would wonder why it wasnt invented sooner

Aloha Shirt Fabric and Prints

In Honolulu there was a store by the name of "Musa-shiya thr shirtmaker" owned by Koichiro Miyamoto who had colorful fabrics and began to design and make shirts from them albeit there is controversy of who was the maker of the aloha shirt as the Chinese merchant Ellery Chun who owned the "aloha sportsware" trademark for 20 years may have originated the shirt but lets stick with Mr Miyamoto for simplicitys sake