Meet the Designers Reclaiming the Aloha Shirt as Their Own

Bailey’s Antiques and Aloha Shirts is a quaint, coral-colored building facing one of the busiest golf courses in Honolulu, Hawaii. It’s nestled near the five-star resorts and luxury-goods shops lining the Waikiki Beach strip in O’ahu—a contrast when you’re staring at the tanned Betty Boop graffiti art. She’s wearing a lei and a green grass skirt. 

David Bailey’s namesake shop has been in business for over 43 years now, providing tourists and locals alike with the latest and greatest aloha shirts. (Perhaps it’s a nod to the unofficial golfing uniform for tourists putting on the green less than 300 feet away.) Inside, thousands of shirts line nearly every square inch of available space—flung on racks and chairs and nestled high on walls out of reach. There’s a print for everyone, Bailey tells me, from pineapples to palm trees and coconuts. While Bailey says he has between 200 to 300 shirts he wears every day (and often rotates out when his wife gets tired of them), the store carries over 15,000, with more coming in daily. 

The majority of the world associates sunset-colored hibiscus-print shirts with corny dad jokes and the smell of hot-dog water during overly warm summer days, but today’s iteration of the aloha shirt found on fast-fashion websites is a mere comical interpretation of Hawaii’s rich, artisan-led design scene. In a world where cultural appropriation seems to rear its ugly head every summer season as more and more luxury design houses take inspiration from Polynesian and native Hawaiian culture for resortwear and travel-adjacent clothing capsules, Hawaii’s blooming fashion scene is reclaiming the aloha shirt as something that’s entirely their own. News flash: Alohawear, and the community-driven designers taking back its power, is more than just a Halloween costume or kitschy destination souvenir—it’s sacred. 

“I think the idea always with aloha shirts is if you want one yourself, research the brand and see if they’re … doing the design in a way that pays homage to its tropical and travel origins—i.e., don’t treat it like a disposable souvenir and buy a fast-fashion knockoff,” editor and stylist Diana Tsui tells Who What Wear. She’s gotten lost in Bailey’s racks on her trip to Honolulu while visiting friends. It’s not a hard feat when you walk in and feel like the store is about to burst with the number of vintage gems piled on top of each other. Of course, she reminds me, it’s always better to support local designers if you’re able to. For the majority of the American public, however, it’s not really a conscious choice. When the temperatures reach above 70°, it feels like you can walk into any big-box retailer and find at least one or two inspired styles cheaply (and most likely unethically) made. That’s not an accident, by the way. 

While I’m speaking on the phone to Bailey, he divulges that, on more than one occasion, he’s spoken with people visiting the shop and learned that they’re representatives from major fashion labels visiting Hawaii who stop by the store, buy up merchandise, and promptly re-create it. Within the industry, the practice is known as inspiration trips—often taken by design teams to repurpose and copy original work that’s already been created by a smaller, usually lesser-known brand. Tsui tells me the same. 

“[A famous design house] borrowed like 10 of our shirts and then made copies. They were only sold in Paris, Tokyo, and in our store,” Bailey reveals. “They wanted to give me like $5000, and I said, ‘No, give me 10 of each shirt that you’re making, and I can sell them myself.’ That was in 1999.”