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Aloha shirts manufactured for local Hawai'i residents are often dull in tone, if not uniformly colored or color-coordinated, and are adorned with traditional Hawaiian quilt designs or simple plant patterns in muted, non-flashy colors. Aloha shirts manufactured for local consumption are considered formal wear in business and government. The shirt's origins are traced back to the early years of the Kingdom of Hawai'i upon the arrival of Congregational and Presbyterian missionaries to the Hawaiian Islands. These early Christian settlers from New England imposed strict dress codes on the native Hawaiians and forced many to wear quick-sewn shirts made of various fabrics available to the missionary seamstresses at the time. Modern Aloha Shirt The modern Aloha shirt was first manufactured commercially in the early 1930s by Chinese merchant Ellery Chun of King-Smith Clothiers and Dry Goods, a store in Waikiki. Chun began sewing brightly colored shirts for tourists out of old kimono fabrics he had leftover in stock. The Honolulu Advertiser newspaper was quick to coin the term Aloha shirt to describe Chun's fashionable creation. Chun trademarked the name. The first advertisement in the Honolulu Advertiser for Chun's Aloha shirt was published on June 28, 1935. Local residents, especially surfers, and tourists descended on Chun's store and bought every shirt he had. Within years, major designer labels sprung up all over Hawai'i and began manufacturing and selling Aloha shirts en masse. The popularity of the Aloha shirt boomed in the United States after World War II as major celebrities sported the Hawaiian wear. President of the United States Harry Truman wore Aloha shirts regularly during his tenure in the White House and in retirement. John Wayne and Duke Kahanamoku endorsed major designer labels while Bing Crosby, Arthur Godfrey and Johnny Weissmuller entertained while wearing them.

The Aloha shirt, often confused with the Hawaiian shirt by non-natives, is a style of dress shirt originating in Hawai. Often short-sleeved, Aloha shirts are brilliantly colored with floral patterns or generic Polynesian motifs and are worn as casual, informal wear.

A jersey is a piece of wollen or cotton clothing with sleeves worn as a pullover; this is to say, it does not open at the front as does a cardigan. It is usually close-fitting and machined knitted in...

Patchwork is a form of needlework or craft that involves sewing together small pieces of fabric and stitching them together into a larger design, which is then usually quilted, or else tied together...

The name commonly applied to synthetic chemical compounds polymerized on the fabric or yarn to give wash-and-wear and durable press properties, crush resistance, dimentional stability, and hand to...

A unit of thermal resistance. The insulation required to produce the necessary heat to keep an individual comfortable at 21 degrees Centigrade with air movement at .1 m/s. One clo is about equal to...

A weave in which the filling fibers go over many warp fibers before going under a warp fiber, creating the illusion that the fibers are floating, and creating fabric that is very shiny but easily...