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Aloha Shirts in Japan

nice gaijin

Resident Realist
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8 Aug 2005
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Sunday night I caught this episode of 美の壺 (Bi no Tsubo), which focused on Aloha Shirts. Where I'm from they're commonly known as "Hawaiian shirts" as well.
After talking about the history of shirts and the various things that collectors look for, they interviewed a few guys who are really into it; one of them had over 4,000 shirts in his collection, with up to 21 different color inks in the prints. Moving on to modern Aloha shirts in Japan, they talked about two companies that are doing something interesting blending old and new concepts.

More information about the episode here: 美の壺 - NHK

Pagong in Kyoto is taking the old silkscreens used to print kimono fabrics, and using them to print new materials to turn into Aloha shirts for men and women.
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Samurai Aloha, based in Sendai, takes actual old kimono and recycles the material into Aloha shirts. Since they can only get so much usable material out of each kimono, they focus on super limited runs of very unique-looking shirts.
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It seems that the Aloha shirt has really come full circle, as it apparently has roots in Japan: A Japanese Origin for the Aloha Shirt? | Fashion, Japanese Culture

I find this to be a really interesting intersection of overlapping cultures, and it's cool that they're taking a growing stock of unused clothing articles and finding ways to breathe new life into them. It got me wondering, what other ways can kimono patterns or styles or even the material themselves be used to create something modern and fresh?

I'm not affiliated in any way with the sites, I just think the designs are interesting and I wish I could afford to be so flashy, even though this isn't my normal style.
 
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