The History of Casual Friday and the Aloha Shirt

By Mariana Venturella

Do you know the difference between “Aloha shirts” and “Hawaiian shirts”? Hawaiian shirts are the westernized versions of Aloha shirts, but there is a long history that has led to this differentiation. During the late 1800s the sugar industry was dying in both America and Europe which led to a mass immigration to the Hawaiian Islands due to their booming sugar industry. In the 1800s (specifically the 1890s) under Hawaiian legislation, any non-citizen who speaks/writes English was allowed to vote. This led to an influx of non-Hawaiian voters drastically changing Hawaiian legislation. After realizing what this was doing to Hawaiian natives and the large Chinese community on the islands, Hawaiian Queen Lili ‘uokalani tried to rework the laws so that citizens voices could be heard. Eventually in 1893 the Hawaiian government was overthrown by Westerners.

As the industry continued to suffer due to war, more people immigrated to the islands for sugar, completely changing the framework of the islands at the time. There was a huge influx of Japanese immigration during the time for them to work in the sugar fields.

This led to the expansion of Japanese culture and community within the Hawaiian Islands, which included a growing amount of textile stores. These textile stores had suzushi, or silk, used to make traditional Kimonos. This fabric was used to create traditional western style shirts, and the Aloha shirt was born. As the shirt gained popularity, the silk was printed/made with traditional Hawaiian designs which is the shirt many people think of today when they hear “Hawaiian shirt”. These designs were brought back to the United States mainland where the creation of “Hawaiian” shirts/souvenirs continued to gain popularity.

Although Hawaii was already westernized, many people still wore silk shirts and ties to work but quickly found this type of dress was not sustainable due to the Hawaiian heat.

A few factory owners of the Aloha shirts created the Hawaiian Fashion Guild, and introduced the movement called “operation liberation” which worked to get Hawaiian men to wear Aloha shirts during the even hotter summer months. They then expanded this movement to the Hawaiian government, where legislation was passed for “Aloha Friday”. This means that all government workers must wear Aloha shirts on Friday’s. The comfort and function of these shirts led to men wearing Aloha shirts almost every day.

It is acknowledged that “Casual Friday” directly came from “Aloha Friday”.

While “Aloha Friday” was the first “Casual Friday”, the term was not coined “Casual Friday” until Levi’s introduced it in the 1930s directly resulting in one of the largest shifts in fashion history where public officials and office workers became more casual than ever before.