Bishop Museum
Yesterday, I visited the Bishop Museum in Honolulu and its Alfred Shaheen Hawaiian Fashion Exhibit. It was wonderful to see the fine display of vintage Hawaiian shirts, vintage aloha wear, and collectible aloha shirts. There are only two more days, today and tomorrow, for this fabulous collection of aloha shirts and vintage Hawaiian clothing.
Alfred Shaheen was a brilliant textile industrialist who is credited with popularizing the Hawaiian shirt. Alfred Shaheen is especially known elevating the tacky tourist Hawaiian shirt to the level of high fashion. Shaheen was born in New Jersey on January 31, 1922 to a family of Lebanese immigrants. His family moved to Honolulu, Hawaii in 1938. More About Alfred Shaheen on his Website.
Shaheen’s designs are integral to most collections of vintage Hawaiian fashion. He was the first and only Hawaiian manufacturer, for many years, to design and produce, in Hawaii, his own beautiful fabrics for Hawaiian fashions and aloha wear.
In 2012, the U.S. Postal Service commemorated Alfred Shaheen’s vintage Hawaiian shirts in 4 out of 5 stamps from their Hawaiian Shirt Postage Stamps series.
Shaheen retired, and his company closed its doors, in 1988. Alfred Shaheen passed away in 2008.
Here are some more examples of Alfred Shaheen Vintage Aloha Shirts and Vintage Aloha Wear for Women seen at the exhiibit:
The blue shirt design above, Tiare Tapa, but in RED, was worn by Elvis Presley in one of his movies.
To learn more about vintage Hawaiian aloha shirts and vintage aloha wear, please see the Hawaiian Shirt Reading List on Alfred Shaheen’s site.
By Yvonne Ahearn (B), Realtor-Broker