A Hawaiian Shirt Only a Mother Could Love

About a year ago I was in our Hawaiian shirt store putting away some stock and overheard a customer asking the clerk on how to go about obtaining our fabric scraps. It was about then that my wife came into the store and the clerk asked her and she replied that we usually donated them to a local church, but then said let me ask Charles. While it’s true that we donate fabrics to charities, I have also often thought about other outlets for the fabric so I responded with a loud and sort of proud tone of voice “I am going to turn all of the fabric scraps into Hawaiian shirts”. At first there was silence and then they all started laughing, little did they know that I was serious. I mean why not, I am often asked by customers to recommend our loudest and often most hideous looking Hawaiian shirt.

That’s also the sort of question that's hard to answer, especially when you pride yourself on offering nice looking Aloha shirts. So my thought and subjective consciousness was to mix up and cut all of the different colored fabric and designs that we had laying around in the shop. Then I was going to have sewing put them together to make what most would consider to be the world’s ugliest Hawaiian shirts and everyone agrees that statement would be an complete understatement. But just imagine the look on someone’s face when they opened a gift and pulled out a shirt that didn’t have any of the shirt 12 pieces that matched. The shock, the horror, the sheer amazement. I think the moment would be totally priceless to say the least.

 

So we started making some of the most popular sizes in limited quantities and tossed them onto the Wave Shoppe Hawaiian shirts website and in our showroom.

 

What myself and everyone else didn’t realize was that some purchasers actually planned on wearing them! Yes, not only are there people that are willing to wear them, we now have a waiting list for people that have requested ugly shirts in a size we didn’t yet offer.

 

The very first shirt sold also happened to be the one we used for the picture in the product page. Here is a picture of the purchaser Alän Lieffring wearing his original ugly Hawaiian shirt.

 

Don't forget that Father's Day Sunday, June 16 2013 and we are certain he would like a Aloha shirt from Wave Shoppe Hawaiian Shirts which are made in the USA

Edit: First off we want to thank everyone for the flood of orders in the past few months. We also wanted to say that we were caught off guard by all of the people that purchased the ugly shirts, not so much that they purchased them, but because they are wearing them. They are sending us pictures as proof, all we can say is hats off those that have the kahunas to do so.

 

Hawaiian Shirt Design from the Archives

 

While reviewing some old artwork that we had not yet followed through on (meaning the design never went to print), I came across this one and wondered if anyone can guess what the large flower is? Your hint is this: While this flower is cultivated commercially in the Hawaiian islands and the US mainland, the flower has a genus of South African flowering plants.



I also managed to dredge up the original pineapple photo that we used for the design we utilized in the Wave Shoppe pineapple shirts.

 

While the design is almost retired, you can still read about the process of designing textiles by reading this blog post appropriately titled Designing Hawaiian Print Fabrics

 

With a lot of new design being printed, as well as on the drawing board, it promises to be a summer filled with exciting new and original designs for Aloha shirts and select Hawaiian dress patterns in the Wave Shoppe line.

Mahalo from everyone at Wave Shoppe Hawaiian Shirts

Wave Shoppe Hawaiian Shirt Fabric Design



Sketch 1

Near the end of the of the year we thought we would close things out with a glimpse of one of the new Hawaiian print fabrics we have been working on for the last 4 months.

Of course there are those of you that are already asking the big question "what takes you so long to knock out a design?" So for those people I will also guide you through some of the basic steps in doing so.

The first step in this process is taking my thoughts on a new fabric design and conveying those mental thoughts to the artist.

This particular design started out with a few leaf and flower pictures from Google images that I simply laid out on a table so I could get a feel for the sizing and repeat for the design.

Once I have a feel for the general repeat I take some rough measurements of things such as flower size, leaf width etc. I will then send my masterpiece to our artist via email. Once she recovers she will call me back and pick my brain over the phone, eventually we reach a point where she feels comfortable enough to start roughing out the first draft of this particular design. Shown in Sketch 1 is the first draft sketch with hibiscus flower and banana leaf.



Sketch 2
 

After we received the first sketch we put it into triage and discuss the designs good and bad points and note any changes we would like to see. In this particular rendition we decided that the banana leaf was to dominant as well as to wide.

 

So the decision was made to scrap one of the banana leafs and replace it with a fern leaf, which is depicted in sketch 2.

 

At this point I should mention that one of the specs for this design was that it not only had to work for Hawaiian shirts for men and women, but also muumuus and dresses.

 

One item that troubled us on this design was that the overall design looked a little “heavy”, meaning the overall design was just to dominant and out of balance with the background color. The weight of a design can make or beak things so its imperative that this part is done correctly.

 

This particular design was actually passed between quite a few artists in Hawaii as well as Japan to discuss the weighting of the leaves as well how to improve the overall look and feel of the design. In my professional opinion the finalized design is now perfectly weighted and well balanced.

 

If you look over at sketch 2 you will see that the tip of the fern leaf is pretty tight against the tip of the banana leaf and the leaf for the hibiscus flower overlaps the banana leaf.
 

Colorized sketch

Mock coloring will also uncover an entirely new set of problems. This design is called an “all over” design and is suitable for not just Hawaiian shirts, but also dresses. What you want to avoid is having any one portion of the design jumping out at you.

At first glance you want the eye to see the entire design and not jump to a specific part, which is this situation we felt we had created just that. If you look at the colorized sketch you will see a few portions of the banana leaf that stood out too much against the rest of the leaf design.

Rather than trying to describe this over the phone it's way easier to send the artist a marked up picture.

In this particular round of changes we asked the artist to break up the broader parts of some leaves with some simple strokes of a brush. The end result was a night and day difference.

Now take a look at the coloring mockup below and you will see that not only has the space between the foliage been increased, but also the width of the banana leafs has now been decreased. The overall positions of the flower clusters were also tweaked so they were in balance with the overall repeat.



Coloring mockup

Next is the all-important task of coloring the design. During the early stages of the design the artist will slap on some random colors, mainly so we can have a little better perspective on what the end design will look like.

 

Ultimately the color choices are left up to me, so during the often lengthy in-between time that it takes to make sketch changes, I can be found digging through color charts and pairing up colors that I feel will be well received by our in-store and on-line customers.


I will normally lay out 50 color codes on a table, and through a process of elimination, eventually arrive at five colors (for each colorway) that I feel go together the best.

  

I would eventually settle on a series of colors, add them in print order next to the color mockup, take a picture of it and then send it to the artist. Yes it’s a bit primitive sounding, but that’s how it works and I am probably being more technical than most artists.

New blue

The end result of all of this work is a new design in blue (shown on the left), which has a perfect color balance. Men as well as women should embrace the colors and how well they work with this particular design.

 

The new purple shown below is another design that we are very excited about.

 

Currently there is not a lot of purple Hawaiian fabric on the market and the designs you can buy are really sucky and cheap looking. 

While we have not yet received the strikeoffs, which is essentially a very short run of approximately 3 yards or each color, we anticipate some really stellar looking fabric. Especially the purple Hawaiian fabric.

New purple

Strikeoffs should be available for our final approval late February 2013 and once we approve them there will be a few weeks of printing time, and maybe another 3 weeks at sea before the rolls of fabric reaches our cutting shop in San Diego.

Which is where we make our Wave Shoppe labeled dresses and Hawaiian shirts sold on www.waveshoppe.com

Your comments and opinions matter, what do you think overall of these designs? Would you buy a shirt or dress in this design?

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

Reverse Print Hawaiian Shirts: Turn Your World Inside Out

Today’s topic is about reverse print Hawaiian shirts and some of the myths and misconceptions that surround them.  If you ask someone what reverse print means to them you will get a variety of responses, with many responses hinging on what trade or task that they are actually familiar with.

People familiar with the technique of printing images or text on the underside of a transparent film or part of a lamination process may say that’s their definition of “reverse print” and to others the modification of your printer properties to achieve a “reverse print” A.K.A mirror image of your fonts, is the proper definition. Both definitions are correct, as well as many others.

But for the sake of discussion I am going to stick with a topic I am an expert on, and that’s Hawaiian apparel, in particular Hawaiian shirts. We sell all sorts of Hawaiian apparel at Wave Shoppe including some reverse print Hawaiian shirts, but you would be amazed by how many people that wear them yet have no idea how they are made.  One common myth is that the shirts are flopped inside out and another myth is that the fabric is somehow printed so that the pattern is muted and dull.

Truth be told the concept is extremely simple. But first let’s do a quick review of how fabric is printed so this will make complete sense to our readers. When a fabric is printed the rolls of white cotton are screen printed by a machine, usually in a continuous run. The coloring or dye lot is pressed into the exposed layer of the raw fabric, and then dried, producing the vivid and often colorful patterns that you see in the shirts.

When the dye is applied it’s absorbed by the fabric and how saturated the fabric get depends on the fabrics gauge and or thickness and thread count, as well as the pressure used during application.

On a good print job the dye will almost ooze from the underside (non-printed side of the fabric) producing a dull toned down, yet mirror image of the design being applied, as illustrated below.

So at this point we have covered the basic aspects of printing fabric. The soft rule for when you are selecting candidate fabrics for reverse print Hawaiian shirts is that you focus on the undersides of the fabrics (as shown above) and try imagine what they would look like as a shirt.

With a little experience under your belt you will come to know that not all fabrics are good candidates, some have too many dominant colors that have bleed through and some don’t have enough. What you don’t want is a shirt that is so poorly dyed that all you see is the thread weave or worse, a visibly low thread count. You objectives are to make a muted looking Hawaiian shirt that looks a bit more stylish than a ghetto looking shirt that was simply flipped inside out.

Once you have made your selection you’re off to the races. All that’s left is to lay out the layers of fabric with the original printed side down and then start cutting the components of the shirt. Sewing will put it all together and presto, you will have a reverse print Hawaiian shirt! The shirt we used for illustration purpose’s is for sale and is appropriately referred to as our Blue Green Reverse Print Hawaiian Shirt which is a big hit with our reverse print customers.

4th of July Celebrations Hawaii

Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. It’s also one of my favorite BBQ holidays and most people would agree with me.

This year the 4^th is on a Wednesday so throwing the traditional Hawaiian party or Luau is going to be tricky. Many people I know plan on celebrating the 4^th on the day of, as well as the weekend before (and yes, I will be wearing my 4th of July Hawaiian shirt) and of course you will find yourself starting the holiday weekend in June, which in my opinion will feel sort of odd to some. But who really cares, you still get a day off work as well as a short, fragmented work week.
 
I wear Wave Shoppe Hawaiian shirts every day and can cook out on the grill whenever I like, so having my holiday weekend start in a different month is no big deal. While I am thinking about it, if you don’t have a new Hawaiian shirt for the weekend you may want to check out Wave Shoppe’s current holiday promotion and save yourself some money and time by shopping online.

 If you’re going to be visiting the Hawaiian islands during the 4^th of July you’re in for a real treat as all of the Hawaiian Islands celebrate the 4^th of July with fireworks and in multiple locations on each island.  The listings below link to Hawaii for visitors website.

Oahu 4th of July Celebrations
Independence Day events on Oahu include fireworks displays at Ala Moana Center, the Aloha Tower Marketplace, Maunalua Bay, and Turtle Bay and several 4th of July Celebrations in other Oahu locations. 

Big Island 4th of July Celebrations
4th of July celebrations on Hawaii Island include the Kailua-Kona 4th of July Parade, the Volcano 4th of July Parade, the Parker Ranch Independence Weekend Rodeo, the Great Waikoloa 4th of July Extravaganza, the Mauna Lani Turtle Independence Day, and the Firecracker Open Big Game Fishing Tournament. 

Maui 4th of July Celebrations
Parades, festivals, and fireworks displays celebrating the 4th of July on Maui Island. Independence Day events on Maui include the Lahaina Fireworks Show and Concert, the Kaanapali 4th of July Celebration, and the Makawao Rodeo. 

Kauai 4th of July Celebrations
Festivals, and fireworks displays celebrating the 4th of July on Kauai Island. The biggest Independence Day celebration on Kauai Island is the "Concerts in the Sky" festival, live music event, and fireworks show in Vidinha Stadium in Lihue, East Kauai.

Happy Father's Day from Wave Shoppe

Happy Father’s Day from all of us at Wave Shoppe Hawaiian Shirts. We celebrate all fathers who, through their own efforts and the efforts of their sons and daughters, have made America the great country that it is!

Have gratitude and love for your father who could also be a hero, guide and friend, he is the only dad you will ever have.

Happy Father’s Day and mahalo everyone!