Hawaiian Shirt Collars Explained

Picture of the 2 different collar styles used in Hawaiian shirts

Shown above is button up collar Hawaiian shirt (shown on the left), a spread collar Hawaiian shirt with a loop closure (shown on the right), this style is commonly referred to as a camp shirt.

In the western hemisphere there has to be at least 35 or so official shirt collar styles, possibly more, so its easy to see why Hawaiian shirt collectors and aficionados get confused about what is what. In regards to a Hawaiian shirt collar, there are 2 basic styles, each has a few style variations as well as different nomenclature.  

The button up collar Hawaiian shirt will utilize what’s called a collar stand, which is sewn between the shirt body and the visible collar.

The collar stand will have a button on one side and a buttonhole on the other, which give the wearer the option to button the shirt or leave it open at varied degrees of openness.


Technically speaking you can say that this shirt style shown above utilizes a 2-piece collar.

Keep in mind that we are referring the sewn garment and not the number of pieces required to make such a collar, which is 2 for the collar stand and 2 for the visible portion of the collar.

Point spread, which we will cover a bit more later on, really isn’t at play because it mainly applies to the cut of the collar and the degrees apart when the collar tips are when the shirt is buttoned. With this collar style there is no pre-set position for the collar tips or collar points, so there is no real way to measure the spread of the collar tips/points. A.K.A. point spread. 

 

Since hardly anyone buttons their shirts at the collar stand, its really not much of a factor or talking point right now. 
 

Let’s now talk about Hawaiian shirts with loop collars. As you can see from the picture on your left that the loop collar style is noticeably different from the button up collar that utilizes a collar stand. While this collar style still uses a button, a loop has replaced the buttonhole. To attach one simply places the loop around the button.

The overall design of a camp shirt is built around a simple open collar design with tips integrated into the shirt. Some may also referred to these collar types as spread collars or camp collars.

You will also find that many of the Hawaiian shirts available today may or may not have the loop and button closure, does that mean anything? Not really, its more a matter of preference, just as having a shirt with a button up collar or loop collar is.

I would like to close by emphasizing that just because your shirt has one of the two collars mentioned, it doesn’t mean that it’s a Hawaiian shirt. You still need some type of design on the shirt that is symbolic of the islands and cultures. In my opinion a solid colored shirt is as far from being Hawaiian, as a horse is to being a zebra.

Special thanks to the folks at Wave Shoppe for the technical info and to Kahala for the model images. Mahalo