Year Of The Parrot

Since I really don’t see that there is such a thing as Year Of The Parrot, I have decided that a few of us at Wave Shoppe will simply create it. My best guess is that we will start out by re-introducing the parrot chimes in the downtown showroom. I have to stop here for a moment and tell you a little more about those parrot wind chimes. You see once upon a time we had 4 or 5 of them hung throughout the store, each one had a colorful 12” parrot on a perch that had 6 chimes hanging underneath it.  So what’s not to love about that you say? Let me tell you that when you are trapped in a small 1000 square foot showroom and you spend all day hearing people bumping into those chimes and dealing with peoples kids threatening to pull them down, its sometimes takes all you can muster to keep your sanity. And then there are the countless times you bump into them yourself.

So a ways back I slapped a price tag on every one of them and told people that if they made one of them chime, they had to buy it. In a matter of weeks I sold every one of them. Now people come into the store and inquire about the demise of the parrots and are requesting that I re-introduce them into the store, oh the humanity.

So that brings us to the next task at hand, how do we raise the bar per se and I am thinking that we will group them with all of the Hawaiian shirts with parrots that we have in the store. I believe that right now we have 5 to choose from, there are our most recent additions, the orange Hawaiian shirt with parrots, the blue Hawaiian shirt with parrots and the crème Hawaiian shirt with parrots.

As I am writing this blog post I am thinking what a wonderfull addition these chimes would make at a target range.

Then  we have the classic black Hawaiian shirt with parrots as well as the classic Hawaiian jungle bird shirt manufactured by Wave Shoppe. I also anticipate dropping a few more new shirts with parrots before summer and possibly bringing back a design we retired a few years ago. So there you have it, 2012 will officially be the year of the parrot.

As our living parrot Coco would say... Squawk, Squawk

Snakes and Hawaii

Snakes and Hawaii

I have heard it said that there are no snakes in Hawaii. Since I do not like snakes, Hawaii could very well be the paradise it is called just for that reason alone. I am not sure why some people bring their snakes into my Hawaiian shirt store. They have them wrapped around their arms, shoulders and neck like a living, breathing scarf. I never knew so many people owned snakes before we moved into our downtown Escondido location that is around the corner and a few doors down from a reptile house.  I have seen some huge ugly lizards, many types of snakes, all sorts of bug eyed lizards, chameleons etc and one guy even walks some type of baby dragon on a leash. They all prance around with their reptiles like they are so proud of them.  You would think they would have the common sense not to bring them into my store but OH NO they come right on in to show me their scaly pets.  

One day I had an elderly lady looking over some of our colorful muumuus and I was helping her find her size. I remember the customer coming into the store and said “Hi let me know if you need any help” I glanced his way and smiled but then turned back to speak to the lady I was helping. I found a couple of muumuus in her size and was halfway to the dressing room to hang them up when she started screaming her head off. She had one hand around her throat and was pointing in the direction of the guy who was the only other customer in the store.

At this point I am thinking he must have a gun he is going to rob us but even worse than that was when I turned to look at him I saw that he had a huge snake wrapped around his neck that snake was so long it hung down his back to the backs of his knees and was wrapped around his neck and down his arm and he was holding the head with his hand. I am thinking 8 feet for sure and of course those beady black eyes were looking right at us.

I guess you can tell my level of comfort with snakes considering I thought a snake was worse than having a gun wielding robber in my store, so during this commotion the man was slowly backing away from us trying to reassure us his snake was harmless. While my customer was doing some kind of weird dance and hiding behind me while holding onto me I yelled “Get that snake out of here now!” That man took off down the street and I have not seen him or his pet since then.

Really owners of large reptiles need to have their heads examined in my opinion. Don’t they watch all those shows that end up with the big snake overpowering the owner and killing them or the shows where snakes get out of the enclosures and kill children in the house? Can’t blame the snake, that’s what they do, they wrap around you and try to eat you.

So I am now curious how they can claim there are no snakes in Hawaii, are you telling me that not one snake lover has ever slipped a snake in a suitcase on board a plane?  So my question to the readers of this blog is…. Is it true there are no snakes on the islands? Let me know if you have ever seen or heard about encounters with snakes in the lush vegetation they have over there.  I did notice when I visited the island of Oahu there were a lot of mongooses over there perhaps that is why there are no snakes?  

Peggy

Thomas Jefferson died on July 4th

I don’t know about you, but I find it hard to believe that the 4th of July is a little over a week away. I mean what happened to April, May and most of June? There’s even a month long gap in my Blog posts, maybe I have lost track of time or maybe it’s just that I have not had much to say, probably the latter. I was thinking that I might research and write about Hawaiian Independence Day, but I think I will save that for a later post.

For most people the 4th of July means a long weekend, fireworks and lots of BBQ and increased alcohol consumption, for some that is. Myself I relish the patriotic displays but I also have a penchant for history and all the little mysteries that come with it, but don’t lump me in with the confused conspiracy theory people, ok.

So speaking of history… below are a few forgotten or little known facts about the 4th of July that you may not know, courtesy of wikipedia

‘Historians have long disputed whether Congress actually signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, even though Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin all later wrote that they had signed it on that day. Most historians have concluded that the Declaration was signed nearly a month after its adoption, on August 2, 1776, and not on July 4 as is commonly believed.

In a remarkable coincidence, both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the only signers of the Declaration of Independence later to serve as Presidents of the United States, died on the same day: July 4, 1826, which was the 50th anniversary of the Declaration. Although not a signer of the Declaration of Independence, James Monroe, the Fifth President of the United States, died on July 4, 1831. Calvin Coolidge, the Thirtieth President, was born on July 4, 1872, and thus was the only President to be born on Independence Day’

I would also like to point out that if you’re a superstitious politician, the 4th may not be your luckiest day. Myself I think I am going to keep it simple, though I do have a nifty and quite loud fireworks shirt (shown below) that I am going to wear for the holiday weekend. I also have an additional patriotic shirt that I will be wearing that’s pretty cool but I don’t have a picture of it yet. Maybe I will add it later on, my wife picked out the design and I must say that she has excellent taste.

Before I forget, while Wave Shoppe offers a lot of unique Hawaiian shirts in the stores and on the Website, many of the shirts I wear are “one of a kind shirts’ which are not available for purchase.

Hot New Summer Dresses Under $40

Summer is not all that far off and we wanted to introduce you to 2 really hot Hawaiian print dresses in two popular color combinations. These dresses are one size fits all, also known as smocked dresses, and they are the latest rage at the beach and casual Hawaiian themed events such as luaus. These Hawaiian dresses are very comfortable to wear and the elastic top means you don’t have to worry about obtaining a good fit.


First in line is this beautiful black Hawaiian tube top dress with red hibiscus flowers, which is going to be a big seller this year.

Priced at just $38.95 you can afford to get more than one.

Next up is another black Hawaiian dress with turquoise hibiscus flowers. We introduced this color combo last summer and it sold out in less than 2 months, nuff said. Psst this is also priced at $38.95

While you are at it, take a moment to check out the many new designs we have added to our line of Hawaiian shirts for men (men like gifts too) as well as new additions to our lineup of authentic muumuu dresses (think Mothers Day), styled after the most popular designs worn in Hawaii.

Mahalo from all of us at Wave Shoppe Hawaiian Shirts and Apparel

Wave Shoppe in Teen Vogue

Last month me and my wife were at the Womens Wear In Nevada (WWIN) Show and the MAGIC Show. MAGIC is the preeminent, most comprehensive trade event in the international fashion industry.

These types of trade shows involve a lot of walking and taking lots of breaks, so while on a short break at Teen Vogues booth we grabbed a copy to see if a design we submitted many months ago had made it into the March issue.


While we knew we were being considered there was never an official “yes we choose you for the shoot”, so it was quite cool to be flipping pages and actually seeing one of our Hawaiian shirts on a model in the magazine.

If you can’t guess it’s the purple Hawaiian shirt with yellow flowers.

Ironically when we returned to San Diego there was a package and personalized letter from Vogue congratulating us on our accomplishment. Its now framed and hanging in the Wave Shoppe Escondido store.

So while at a glance you see that we sell Hawaiian shirts and dresses, we are also heavy into designing textiles and traveling deeper into the fashion jungle with each passing day.

I was just getting ready to click the “publish post” button and I was thinking that I failed to mention that for me, making it into Conde Nast’s Vogue would be like dying and going to heaven. Recently I learned that I have the dying part all dialed in so now all I need to do is come up with a design before then.

To Whom It May Concern

"To Whom It May Concern:

I don’t think a company gets much feedback or credit when they do something right and I wanted you to know that I couldn’t be more pleased with the merchandise that I received and how quickly I received it. I placed my order on a Friday and received it the following Monday! What great service! I will be in Maui next week wearing my shirt I purchased which, by the way, fit perfectly.

Thank you again for the great product and the outstanding service your company provided. I will definitely recommend you to anyone.

Ken L

South Sioux City, NE"

Customers who purchase Hawaiian shirts from Wave Shoppe tell it best, adding that our company and products receive praise on a daily basis. Ken recently purchased our big mens Maui Hawaiian shirt which is one of our latest designs.

Hawaiian Apparel Wedding Planners

In conventional Hawaiian weddings, both the bride and groom wore all white, and the groom wore a painted sash around his waist and a maile lei around his neck. Many grooms dressed for a San Diego beach wedding wear Hawaiian shirts and light colored pants. Mainland wedding couples also prefer to dress themselves in formal bridal gowns and tuxedos, which creates beauty and a romantic contrast on a sandy beach.

After a lot of years of planning weddings here in San Diego we can tell you that we've had requests for just about every style of Hawaiian wedding attire at our Hawaiian apparel store. If you need help selecting attire fit for a wedding, just stop by the Kalmia St showroom and our expert wedding planner Peggy will help you choose the wedding attire that is appropriate for the two of you.

Pictured above is another happy couple that had recently utilized our expert wedding services wearing Wave Shoppe Hawaiian apparel for their special day.

One Turtle Two Turtle Green Turtle Blue Turtle

As much as we would like to tempt you with a freewheeling plot about a boy and a girl, and the many amazing creatures they have for friends, we cant.

But what we can do is show you a picture of our new blue Hawaiian shirt with turtles in which we have in 2 wonderful colors. Of course we are just going to show you the blue one and ask you go look at the green Hawaiian shirt with turtles, for which we also provided a convenient link.

These hawaiian shirts are made from cotton poplin (which has a high thread count) and are priced at just $45.95 and like all Wave Shoppe apparel, made in the USA. By the way, that $45.95 price point is well under the price of most imported shirts, which are clearly of lesser quality.

Honu Honu or is that Nanu Nanu?

Quintinn Piikane Holi and the Hawaiian Trio

Its not often that post many people pictures, but we wanted to say Mahalo to an awesome friend of Wave Shoppe’s named Quintinn Piikane Holi. Quintinn is not only a remarkable singer/musician and story teller, he is also a real Hawaiian (and eats like one) with lots of Aloha in his heart. He is someone you actually want to know.

Quintinn plays at a lot of gigs, but in my opinion some of the most down to earth stuff is performed right in front of our store, accompanied the local San Diego hula troupe, Tipanie O Patitifa. If you’re in San Diego during the summer months please stop by and have a listen. Holy smokes! I almost forgot to tell you about the picture. Just prior to one of Quintinn’s high sea adventures, Wave Shoppe released the Indigo Hawaiian shirts (pictured above) and it wasn’t long before Quintinn came by to scope them out. Well as fate would have it, a few of them (almost magically) ended up in brudah Quintinn’s pickup truck, headed for exciting destinations unknown.

Alas we saw a post on Quintinns facebook or something, it mentioned the shirts were spotted in a picture on a cruise ship. Weeks later Q wandered to the store to play, with picture in hand, and honestly its one of the nicest things I have received all year.

Mahalo Quintinn!

Wave Shoppe Hawaiian Shirts and Apparel

Ten things you should do while wearing a Hawaiian Shirt

Ten things you should do while wearing a Hawaiian Shirt:

1. Go to a Luau

2. Go to Da Beach to catch Da Local Babes Attention

3. Play your Ukulele... (keep it clean brah)

4. Crash a Wedding

5. Eat Fish & Poi

6. Wear your Hawaiian Shirt on Aloha Friday

7. Take a Trip to Hawaii

8. Hang Loose \m/

9. Go Check Out Hula Girls!

10. Cruizing with the Top Down

Ok so you live in a cave and have no idea where to buy a Hawaiian shirt. Here is a hint, check out Wave Shoppe Hawaiian Shirts and Apparel

Post a comment and tell us what you do in a Hawaiian shirt or post your comment on http://www.facebook.com/HawaiianShirts and we will list your FB page right here!

facebook.com/fuzzyape I hold open houses in my Hawaiian shirts

facebook.com/steve.gerencser I meet with clients in my Hawaiian shirts. No suit or tie here!

facebook.com/sherwood Hamilton II take a stroll on the beach at sunset and watch the fireworks after dark on 4th of july with your toes in the cool sand.

Local Church Says Mahalo for Hawaiian Fabric

We wanted to take a moment to share with you a letter received from a local church, they receive a good portion of the fabric scraps created by Wave Shoppe Hawaiian Shirts and Apparel and as many know, we generate a lot of fabric scraps.

When you cut Hawaiian apparel not all of the full fabric width is utilized and in a short amount of time a busy shop can generate a sizable amount of odd shaped stacks of fabric. Some are as small as 6 x 6 quilting squares and some are ½ yard or more. So many years ago we concluded that giving the fabric away to good causes was a better alternative than adding more volume to a landfill.

But to whom do we give it to? Well and I kid you not, just a few weeks after making that decision we were approached by a local church that made quilts for some great causes, and the rest is history. Now who says God doesn’t work in mysterious ways?

WSJ News on Rayon Hawaiian Shirting

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal posted a piece about rayon Hawaiian shirts, vests, and designer dresses making a comeback and I thought it was kind of interesting that they oughtright attribute that to an increase in cotton prices. But my in-depth knowledge of the industry got the best of me, even though they tossed out some data, I couldn’t help but wonder if the article on rayon was still wrote from the perspective of being on the outside looking in.

“Cotton prices surged 91% in 2010, leaving designers and clothes makers scrambling to find lower-cost alternatives. One of their favorite replacements is rayon, an 80-year-old fabric whose last golden age was in the 1980s, when it was used in everything from Hawaiian shirts to sequined vests”

While I don’t disagree that cotton prices surged in 2010, lets be fair and state that textile costs have surged consistently every year, and for all fabrics. Japan is clearly the largest importer of raw cotton from the USA and when the price goes up here its naturally passed along when we purchase the finished textile. But what’s not factored into the WSJ article is the cost of petroleum, something of which Hawaiian printed fabrics are very dependent on, as many processes are petroleum based in one way or another. I just have to wonder why a key textile ingredient was left out of the article, dont you? I did some quick price checking with some of our importers on 1/7/2011 and it appears that rayon ROT is currently priced 18 cents above cotton. So either the importers did not get the memo or the WSJ data is a bit skewed or slanted to impress shareholders of wood pulp companies.

I also found it intriguing that they failed to focus on Indonesia, which is where most of the rayon fabric is produced. Wave Shoppe’s rayon mens Hawaiian shirts are made from very high quality imported rayon, but  frankly we have never seen any rayon fabric offered where the country of origin was Japan.

“Rising cotton prices are pushing a forgotten retro staple back onto the fashion runway” Retro? My lord women looking to wear a higher end dress have never opted for cotton, its been rayon or nothing for so many years that I can’t count them all. Wave Shoppe is introducing an entirely new line of rayon and cotton Hawaiian dresses this year and I assure you that the rayon will outsell the cotton, even though a finished rayon garment is higher priced.

So my final thought on all this is that this WSJ article is just another power play to push a material (rayon) that has higher profit margins, than it is to outline that cotton shirting prices are going up.

Full WSJ article

What’s Behind Your Clothing Label?

What’s Behind Your Clothing Label?

Over the years the apparel industry in the United States has taken a pretty severe beating, much of that can be attributed to the cheap foreign labor and government trade agreements that reward businesses for taking their apparel manufacturing out of the country. Personally I think it’s just plain sad that companies like Wal-Mart and Kohl’s have set up camp in places like Vietnam (actually whole cities), where the average monthly wage is about $45 USD a month and then have the balls to further leverage that by bringing the cheaply made garments back to the USA for sale and distribution.

We are sure that you noticed during the holidays that those stores were selling shirts and outfits for as low as $5, but have you really thought about the real story behind those clothing labels with crafty designer names that for the most part do not even exist? Probably not, but envision yourself as a seamstress that works in often appalling conditions with a sign above the room that counts down the daily quota that needs to be met before your shift can go home, you have to endure that 6 long days a week and for just a couple of bucks a day. I call that corporate exploitation of human species.

So you think that couldn’t possibly be the case with companies that make Hawaiian shirts and apparel? Wrong, while you may see the name of some person that rings a bell like Tori Richard etc. or a label that says Aloha Island or something, you probably don’t think about where it was actually made and by whom. Looks can be deceiving and that applies to clothing labels. While Reyn Spooner may state to operate out of Hawaii, the fact of the matter is that the colorful silk garments are 100% made overseas, as are all other shirts made from silk. No aloha there folks.

Then we have the shell game called re-labeling which is rampant throughout the apparel industry and not just limited to Hawaiian apparel manufacturers and distributers. Put it this way, there are over 100 Hawaiian and tropical themed clothing labels and just a handful of actual manufactures in the USA; you can see how it’s hard to keep track of who makes what.

Your best bet is taking a moment to turn over the label and look. If you can’t find a country of origin then we strongly suggest you take a pass on buying the garment. Secondly give thought to whether or not you will be able to sleep at night knowing that a human being was exploited to offer you a Hawaiian shirt for $14.95

Ok it says made in the USA or Hawaii or San Diego, it must be ok to buy. Not necessarily because while a company may say that it makes something in the USA isn’t always as straight forward as it appears. Case in point, a company named American apparel that on numerous occasions has used workers that are here illegally to manufacture their products, is that what you would call American made? Source

So what do we do now? Be assured that any Hawaiian shirts that carry the Wave Shoppe label are actually made by Wave Shoppe. We do not have any distributers, do not practice re-labeling, nor do we employ any workers or seamstresses that do not have legal residency in San Diego, California or Hawaii. The Wave Shoppe label is also proudly sewn on our muumuu and Hawaiian dresses.

But let it be told that cotton Hawaiian fabrics of any quality are almost exclusively printed overseas with cotton imported from the USA. While we are aware of a couple U.S. based textile printers the quality of the fabric and dyes used is beyond atrocious and at nearly $25 a yard you can hardly justify using it to cover a chair not alone produce apparel. So when you factor in that our branded clothing utilizes cotton from the U.S. and all of the cutting and sewing and distribution are done on American soil with American workers its about as close as you are going to get for being American made Hawaiian clothing.

Clothing label images courtesy of Clothing Labels 4 U