You could keep them clean by washing them in a lake or a bucket of water by hand, and then letting them simply air dry on the branch of a tree, regardless of how you washed them they would keep you cool in the hot fields. Whatever the benefits, the dull checkered patterns were too much like a uniform for many, but with the introduction of colorful Asian fabrics, Hawaiian shirts of bright patterns and colors were most widely adopted for sales to eager to shop tourists.
Celebrities of the day such as Bing Crosby, Elvis etc. wore them (celebrities were probably the few that could afford to travel to the Hawaiian Islands at that time), and their popularity became more mainstream once their fans saw their favorite celebrities wearing one.
During times of hardship such as World War II and the depression, petroleum based fabrics became scarce. To make ends meet and keep business coming in, some merchants ingeniously used upholstery and curtain fabrics in their shirts and it wasn’t uncommon to see other shirts cut up and recycled into a Hawaiian style cut shirt.
In the late 1960s (after the royal Hawaiian females no longer dominated surfing) when the world was in the grip of the first surfing craze, the beach boys and other gnarly surfer dudes wore their shirts in the salt and sun so much the shirts would be sun faded and have a natural washed out look. This was a badge of honor among some male surfers (go figure), and as you can guess some of the entrepreneurial island shirt makers emulated it by making shirts with the patterns inside out! God even wears one!
