Wave Shoppe Customers Say it Best

"Aloha Charles and Wave Shoppe Company. I want to share with everyone that is looking for customer reviews, that this company is the best. The customer service is awesome, the quality of the product is over the top. This company takes pride in their work. The fine craftsmanship in the muumuus and shirts that we have bought, stands above any other, I have purchased. 

From the choices of design, color, and fabric that is available, you can find a print that will work for you and yours. I buy matching clothing for my wife and I, a mid-calf muumuu for her and an aloha shirt for me, and they are so fine. We wash the items, upon delivery, (and they get here fast), and they are perfect, feel good, look good, and are soft. The collars and button line are well made, a quality that is not shared among other manufacturers. 

The sewing on the clothing is phenomenal. I have requested, and made, a custom order with Charles, who fulfilled my order, quickly, correctly and was superb with customer service. Ordering is always easy, delivery is quick, and the quality of the product is never overlooked! This comes from a Hawaiian native, or kanaka, from the Big Island, I have seen many shirts and muumuus. 

I have also bought from many different manufacturers. This company is, "da best", in customer service, quality, and good pricing. Do yourself a favor and purchase from the Wave Shoppe, for your loved ones, or your company. Paul (Big Island Boy)" 

Dashboard Hula Girl Fashion Show

Aloha! Today's post is going to be a bit off the beaten path as we take a out of control turn at the fork in the road.  As far back as anyone can remember, people have been stylizing and personalizing their automobiles.

I remember quite well the days of seeing tiger tails (hanging off the fuel tank and the interior mirror), bug black and white fuzzy dice, and even Jesus statues adhered to peoples cars.

Then at some point in time there was the emergence of dashboard Hula girl dolls. Sure they are dolls, but to many they had names and were cheerful companions on many a road trip. The spring loaded base allowed them to gently sway while traveling down the highways. The adhesive pad on the base of the dashboard doll held them in place.

These dashboard ornaments were spring loaded and came in a multitude of themes such as a hula girl simply posing, or hula girl dancing with uli uli flowers and of course the iconic hula girl playing a ukulele which was usually available in quite a few variations.

So when we fast forward to today it appears that these spring loaded hula dolls are still as popular as ever.

We really couldn't draw the line with just one style of hula doll, so we added quite a few variations, that way prospective owners could have a bit of a fashion show before deciding on which one to buy.

Cereus Flowers Bloom at Night

Its hard to believe that it's already fall as well as starting to cool down in many parts of the country. But that doesn't stop us from making Hawaiian shirts no mam.

This week sewing did a partial release on a beautiful new design that's perfect for Hawaiian shirt Fridays at work, as well as holidays such as Christmas.

As our regular readers already know, we name our shirts, the names are usually derived from something in the shirts design, well most of the time. This one is called the Burgundy cereus flower Hawaiian shirt

Cereus flowers bloom at night, in Hawaii, night-blooming cereus crown the lava rocks and some species have a very short lifespan and bloom only once a year for a single night. But don't worry, the cereus flowers on these shirts are in bloom 24/7

We have some additional mens designs that are slated to be released late this year, just keep an eye on our authentic mens Hawaiian shirt department. Additionaly you could sign up for our newsletter, and be one of the first to get notified of new products, the form is located in the footer of our website.

Mahalo

If the shirt fits, wear it

Lately we have been getting an increased amount of calls from people asking if we buy slightly worn Hawaiian shirts. The calls usually start out something like "I have worn out all of my shirts and need to replace them" and we know that somewhere during the conversation they will be injecting the phrase "rather than throw them out, would you like to buy them".

First off we only sell new Hawaiian clothing and we do not operate a thrift store. But for the life of me I cant understand why someone would ever want to part with something personal like a well worn Hawaiian shirt, especially if they were high quality shirts came from Wave Shoppe Hawaiian shirts, or another awesome company such as Kahala.

I must admit that I am fine with tossing all of the imported shirting directly into the trash, the designs and construction had no value when they were new. 

While for the most part the vintage shirts tend to stay put, every so often we will get a call pertaining to re-homing someones prized collection. I just cringe when the first words I hear are that that some of the shirts they are re-homing are vintage Hawaiian shirts such as the one pictured below.

Vintage Hawaiian shirt

I can honestly say that I wear my Hawaiian shirts until they will no longer stay on my torso. If the shirt still fits even a little, I wear it. When I do have a shirt that is ready to be retired (which is quite rare), I treat the garments disposal just as if it was the American flag. No way would I be able to simply toss my old friends to the curb like that.

Wave Shoppe has a lot of it's first customers and they tell us that they have been wearing their shirts for 11 years now and they tell us that they still get comments on how great the shirts still look. Not to be a braggart, but that's a statement a lot of shirt makers will never hear.

Men's Hawaiian Threads

This is the time of year that we start a review of sort on the current year clothing line, with he men's Hawaiian shirts section receiving extra scrutiny. This is not done by just one person, the entire staff is asked to reflect and provide their personal input on what Hawaiian shirts designs they think were popular, as well as which ones were not all that hot.

Yes, occasionally we put out a design that simply doesn't move as fast as others. Additionally lower sales doesn't necessarily mean it was a "bad print". Many of my personal favorites never sold in big numbers, beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but I can say that collectors and Hawaiian shirt addicts certainly knew a good shirt when they saw one

But today's post is not even about those shirts, it's about one of our most popular designs, the brown Hawaiian shirt with sea turtles

Part of the allure is that the coloring in this shirt is easy on the eyes and goes extremely well with khaki colored pants and shorts. While at first glance it my look a little busy, it's the fine detail that drives this one over the top. And then there is the layer of sophistication that airbrushed background, which we started using around 10 years ago, brings to the shirt. 

Keep an eye out for the new men shirts that we are rolling out over the next few months, they are going to look totally awesome! And the new Wave Shoppe Hawaiian Shirts website is now up and running. Please have a look around and remember to like your favorite shirts with the Facebook button that may be found on every product page. Mahalo

Labor Day Hawaii

Its already September with Labor Day is just around the corner, it's also one of our busiest months. Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. While we work hard to sell all sorts of Hawaiian clothing, our line of men's Hawaiian shirts outsell everything combined. We get tons of positive comments on the awesome construction and fit, as well as our unique designs. We can only guess that everyone wants to look their very best and they do that with the help of Wave Shoppe!

This fall we are cutting and sewing some men's Hawaiian shirts with Plumeria flowers in navy blue and we are soon releasing our first burgundy colored design.

Some of the more popular colors have been purple, brown, and blue. Of course there are those ugly Hawaiian shirts that people seemingly cant get enough of. The shirts are made with all sorts of colors and designs, nothing matches, not even the shirt pocket.

We also started expanding the Hawaiian muumuu line with hot new colors decorated with plumeria flowers in 4 colorways, one being the ever popular purple. You will also find new caftans, as well as a few of our customer favorites

Also new for this year is a category called Accessories which will initially contain men and women's flip flops and tropical beach bags, something that we had many, many, requests for. Well that's it for now, have a fun and safe holiday!

Wave Shoppe Webstore Gets a Major Upgrade

Aloha,
Back when we started our Hawaiian shirt company in early 2004 there really was not a lot of web store options available to mom and pop operations like us. If I remember correctly there were Yahoo stores, Microsoft FrontPage and some other what you see what you get HTML editors. Of course you also had the option to code your own websites from scratch, but that was not within our skill-sets.

Earlier that year I was gifted a copy of FrontPage from a friend, not knowing what it was for I filed it in a drawer. But as time went on I started thinking about all of the sales that the website for company I worked for was bringing in. It wasn't long before I had the software installed and started dabbling with the features.

You may not know it but Wave Shoppe was primarily an automotive website that slowly morphed its way to a clothing only site. The automotive portions of the site went on to their own domains and a few are still alive today. Years and years had passed and Microsoft eventfully retired FrontPage and replaced it software called Expression Web.

We converted to that platform, but not without a lot of pain and agony, lots of things ceased to function with he upgrade. Over the years we worked out most of the major bugs. But it seams that in a blink of an eye the once shiny new website was over 10 years old and was really starting to show its age.

In June of this year we made the decision to abandon the original platform altogether. The Volusion platform we chose offered a lot of features to account holders, and ease of site management such as speedy product updating, as well as putting us in a better position in terms of user experience across all viewing platforms, such as tablets, PC and mobile devices.

Like all things new there is a learning curve, and of course a few minor bugs, but in the long run the website should stay modern for years to come.If you have not yet visited the newly designed website, click the following link to the homepage for Wave Shoppe Hawaiian Shirts

We have also heavily invested in new inventory, as well as shored up our always in stock clothing items. We have even added a few new categories, have a look!

Mahalo

Hilo Hattie files for bankruptcy protection, again

It seams that Hilo Hattie is on the rocks again, their parent company has filed for bankruptcy protection and it's not the first rodeo for the once beloved brand.  Back in 2008 Hilo Hattie files for bankruptcy, citing $23M in debt. Today the company filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in U.S. Bankruptcy Court last night, listing debts of between $10 million and 50 million.

With another well known Hawaiian shirt business and related textile suppliers and Hawaiian shirt manufacturers indicating that sales are decent for this time of the year, you have to wonder what they are doing wrong.

Let me be the first to say that I am a fan of the brand as well as history behind Hilo Hattie. But I have to say that I have never been a fan of their clothing, especially the shirts.

The last time I was in a Hilo Hattie store, which was the San Diego location, I found the selection to be minimal and the men's shirts were sort of cheap looking. I expected to see better.

While the parent company will never publicly say why they are in dire straits financially, an educated guess is that they made bad investments in and outside of Hilo Hattie. Again, Hawaiian shirt sales for this time of month are relatively strong and with peak season right around the corner its shaping up to be another good year.

I know what I am about to say will bring out the haters but they should dissolve the company and put an end to repeatedly stiffing all of their creditors and investors. They were very close to dissolving in a prior bankruptcy, so maybe this time it will actually happen.

The Best Concealed Weapon Clothing

I was thinking that we author a lot of articles about the many uses for Hawaiian shirts such as something to wear at a Luau, clothing to pack for a trip to an island paradise such as Hawaiian or Fiji.

So in this edition we are veering off the beaten path and writing about a use that you may not have thought of, wearing colorful Hawaiian to conceal your permitted everyday carry handgun. Anyone that carries a firearm for personal protection knows that there are a ton of specialized garments specifically designed for permitted firearm carry available on the internet and in gun stores, some are made with built in elastic holsters, some with added shoulder reinforcement to support the additional weight and more.

I am not going to get into which is best method to carry or if who should or should not have the constitutional right to do so (because this is just not what this article is about), but there are a huge number of men that carry with a inside the waistband holster as well as those that also conceal carry with a outside the waistband holster.

But don't confuse open carry with concealed outside the waistband carry, if it covered, its concealed. If your unsure which is which and which method is legal and what is not in your state, please review the handgun laws and requirements for your state.

So what makes mens Hawaiian shirts so well suited for this you ask? Well for starters the Hawaiian shirts are usually cut longer than most pullover shirts and they tend to have a very loose fit, which is important because the whole premise behind concealed carry is the element of surprise and easy access to your firearm. A overly tight fitting shirt will tend to hug every nook and cranny of your torso, including the firearm you are carrying, this is often referred to as "imprinting".

With a loose fitting Hawaiian shirt you can be reasonably certain that imprinting will not occur. As an added bonus, most Hawaiian shirts contain a allover design, often with multiple colors that almost act as a form of camouflage, which further reduces the chance of imprinting. Even if your concealed carry is outside the waistband as pictured.

But lets not forget about the ladies. Marksmanship and self protection is huge popular with the ladies. There are more deadeye women shooters than you can ever imagine.

The amount of concealed carry clothing available to the ladies is mind boggling. Women also have the advantage of being able to carry in quite a few additional areas of the body that are not afforded to the males.

They can carry in their belt line as well as in specially made bras and boxer shorts and a wide array of other specialized undergarments. Which brings us to non-fitted womens Hawaiian shirts which offer a looser fit compared to a fitted shirt as many womens shirts are.

Remember the element of surprise is lost once your firearm is visible due to imprinting or lack of material to adequately cover the firearm.

The Muumuu

 I sell a lot of muumuus in my Hawaiian shirt store they seem to be a staple for the elderly and in fact I have had so many women come into the store looking for tropical dresses in younger styles because they say Muumuu’s are for Grandmothers. So I started stocking younger looking dresses for women who didn’t want to buy a muumuu.

One of our new styles is very popular it had straps for the shoulders, elastic in the upper back and a flounced hemline that falls slightly above the knee so it is a really good dress for a summery day or a luau or it can be worn to work along with a jacket for a more professional look. I just kind of assumed no young women would want to be seen in a muumuu however I was in for a surprise the following week.

A beautiful young girl in her twenties came to my store looking for a party dress for a luau. I saw her looking in the muumuu section and referred her to the tropical dresses more fitting for her age but she said she wanted to dress respectfully for her Grandfather and would prefer a more traditional look. I thought that was such a beautiful sentiment to want to please her Grandfather with a modest look so she tried on our Mid-Calf Navy Muumuu and it looked great on her. She was happy this muumuu came with 2 pockets so she could have her cell in one pocket and her keys in the other.

She also picked out a beautiful, white plumeria hair clip and a pair of matching earrings to complete her look. I asked her what type of shoes she was going to wear but she said it was a backyard luau and shoes were optional, but most of the family would be barefoot including her Grandfather.  She was such a pleasant young lady and she will look fabulous at her Grandfathers luau.

Hawaiian Shirts and Levis…

Recently I have noticed a lot of guys are wearing some really moderate prints and they pair them with Levis while some guys are wearing shirts that I consider a little gaudy. The truth is some guys want to wear the gaudiest shirts they can find. The definition of the word Gaudy is as follows: ostentatiously or tastelessly ornamented. Does this even bother you to think that someone thinks your shirt is Gaudy? My hubs definitely tries to find shirts that I would consider Gaudy personally I think he does it just to bother me.

One of the ugliest, gaudiest shirts we sell here at the Wave Shoppe is our Ugly Hawaiian shirt where every piece of the shirt is made from a different colored remnant. It is appropriately named the Ugly Shirt and is currently our number one selling shirt.

I myself like to see a guy in a nice pair of jeans and a shirt that casually matches the jeans so two of my favorite shirts at the Wave Shoppe are the white/blue hibiscus shirt (white background with beautiful blue hibiscus flowers) and the blue pineapple paradise Hawaiian shirt (tranquil mix of blues with leafs, pineapples and other patterns and both of these shirt go great with blue jeans.

So if you are dressing for a casual date night with your girl or your wife I suggest you try the tranquil shirt or if it is a night out with the guys then by all means wear the Ugly shirt.

The men's Hawaiian shirts with the Wave Shoppe label sold on www.waveshoppe.com are available in men's sizes small up to 5X. Many of the shirts are also available in women's cuts and select dresses such as muumuus and long tank dresses.