Alfred Shaheen

Alfred Shaheen

Alfred Shaheen, circa 1957, wearing the Samoan Tapa.

Alfred Shaheen, circa 1957, wearing the Samoan Tapa.
Born Alfred Shaheen
January 31, 1922
Cranford, New Jersey
Died December 22, 2008
Torrance, California
Resting place Oahu Cemetery, Honolulu, Hawaii
Education Whittier College
Occupation Textile Industrialist
Awards

Ka'Ahu No'eau Governor's Lifetime Achievement Award, State of Hawaii, 2001

Hawaii's 150 Most Important Influences Since 1856, The Honolulu Advertiser, July 2, 2006

Military career

Allegiance United States of America
Service/branch Army Air Corps
Years of service 1943–1945
Rank First Lieutenant
Unit Fighter Pilot in the 9th and 12th Air Corps
Website www.alfredshaheen.com
An Alfred Shaheen shirt on a 1961 Elvis Presley album cover.[1]

Alfred Shaheen (January 31, 1922 – December 22, 2008) was a textile industrialist who is credited with popularizing the Hawaiian shirt.[2][3]

"Alfred Shaheen is arguably the father of the Hawaiian fashion industry. It was Shaheen who brought Hawai‘i fashion to the world. His unique and artful prints and sophisticated, fashion-forward silhouettes brought national, and even international, attention to island fashion from the 1940s through the 1980s. It was Shaheen who took aloha attire from casual tourist wear to elegant style statements."[4]

"He was a true visionary," said Linda Arthur, a professor and curator for the Washington State University Department of Apparel, Merchandising, Design and Textiles. "He started in a place (Hawaii) where there was no industry to speak of and created one from the ground up, creating a truly vertically integrated business."[5]

"Island textiles icon Alfred Shaheen was among the founders of the modern Hawaiian garment industry, helping revolutionize the business not only through innovative designs but by establishing a business model that allowed him to introduce Hawaiian wear to people around the world."[6]

"No manufacturer inspires more respect than Alfred Shaheen, who built the most self-sufficient garment company Hawaii would ever see.... This success story of a family-run, Hawaiian owned and operated company has inspired others for more than 50 years."[7]

Elvis Presley wears the Tiare Tapa, an Alfred Shaheen shirt, on the album cover for his album Blue Hawaii.[8]

Early life

Shaheen was born in Cranford, New Jersey on January 31, 1922 to a family of Lebanese immigrants, who were garment industry entrepreneurs. Shaheen's grandfather, Assi Shaheen, came to the U.S. from Lebanon in the late-1800s and established silk factories in New York and New Jersey. Shaheen's father, George, joined his father, Assi, in the U.S. in the early-1900s. George ultimately started his own business, Geo. Shaheen, with his wife, Mary. In 1938, George moved his family and his business to Hawaii, where George and Mary specialized in custom garments made from silks, brocades, rayon satin, and other formal fabrics. Alfred returned to the mainland to attend Whittier College, where he excelled at math, physics, engineering and football. Alfred graduated with a degree in aeronautical engineering just as the U.S. entered World War II. Alfred enlisted in the Army Air Corps and became a fighter pilot, flying 84 missions over Germany, Italy and France.[9][10][11]

Surf 'n Sand Hand Prints

In 1945, when Shaheen returned to Hawaii from the war, he joined his parents in their custom garment business. In 1948, in keeping with family tradition, Shaheen branched out to create his own garment company, specializing in ready-to-wear aloha shirts and women's fashions. He started his company in the Shaheen family home on Kalakaua Avenue with four seamstresses trained by his mother, Mary. Like other Hawaiian manufacturers of his day, Shaheen's aloha wear was originally made with textiles imported from the mainland. However, using these imported textiles had serious drawbacks. In the late-1940s, a dock strike and the Korean War severely curtailed importation of goods to Hawaii, and Shaheen soon realized that if he wanted to survive, he must find a way to create his own fabrics. Shaheen set up Surf 'n Sand Hand Prints, his first print plant, in a Quonset hut on Hornet Street on the outskirts of town. With two inexperienced local workers, Shaheen began building his machinery from parts he found in Honolulu's junkyards.[11][12][13]

By 1950, Shaheen had engineered and built his own machinery to print, dye, and finish his fabrics. By 1952, Shaheen was printing more than 60,000 yards of fabric per month under the name Surf 'n Sand Hand Prints. In 1956, Shaheen built an $8,000,000 factory, showroom, and office complex, and by 1959 Shaheen employed over 400 people, sold garments worldwide, owned his own chain of retail stores in Hawaii, and grossed more than $4,000,000 annually ($30,000,000 in today's money). Shaheen attributes these achievements to Surf 'n Sand and his ability to print and produce his own fabrics.[5][11][12][13]

Master printer

Shaheen engineered his unique method of silk-screening textile designs for mass production, and introduced new sewing and production techniques to the garment industry. In his in-house training department, Shaheen and his mother, Mary, trained artists, printers, screeners, finishers, seamstresses, and models. These highly-trained individuals became known as Alfred Shaheen's City of Craftsmen and produced the extraordinary garments that made Shaheen the largest aloha wear manufacturer in Hawaii in the 1950s and 1960s. These specialized craftspeople eventually integrated into the Hawaiian garment industry, taking with them the knowledge obtained from their training and experience.

Alfred Shaheen's impact on the textile and apparel industry was not limited to Hawaii. Shaheen distributed his clothing all over the world and each garment was like a moving canvas. To Shaheen, textiles and apparel represented a mode of communication and his imagery honored all ethnic groups. Shaheen started the movement of using authentic cultural imagery in textiles and clothing, which brought ethnic themes to the forefront of the international apparel industry. Shaheen believed in celebrating our cultural diversity and insisted his artists create textile designs true to a culture’s roots. Shaheen prints were adapted from authentic sources, such as rare books found in libraries and ancient artifacts found in museums. Shaheen and his staff visited Tahiti, Samoa, Hong Kong and Tokyo to study the designs of the native Eastern Pacific Rim. Shaheen adapted these designs to textiles and produced such Hawaiian classics as the Pua Lani Pareau, Antique Tapa, and Joss Sticks handprints. Shaheen’s meticulous artwork and fashion sense established a sophisticated acceptance of exotic imagery in textiles and apparel. Although the phrase “East Meets West” is now part of our everyday language, Shaheen first used these words as the name of Shaheen boutiques established in the mid-1960s in major department stores across the country.

"He was a genius," Dale Hope, creative director for Kahala Sportswear and author of the book The Aloha Shirt, told The Honolulu Advertiser. "Nobody came close to having the deep knowledge, and having the respect for the artists, the art, the printing, the distribution and the retailing. To be a vertical manufacturer — where you create your own art, make your own piece goods, sell them at your own retail stores and do wholesale accounts worldwide — that was pretty darn impressive."[5]

Shaheen's designs were featured in the pages of fashion magazines such as Vogue, Mademoiselle, and Harper's Bazaar. His clothes and fabrics were sold all over the world, including Bergdorf Goodman, Bloomingdale's, Macy's and Bullock's.[4]

In the 1960s, immediately following Hawaiian statehood, the company diversified, adding footwear, drapery, jewelry, fragrance, even pattern kits complete with fabric and coconut buttons.[4]

Innovations

Labels

Shaheen's Hawaiian shirts, sarongs and sundresses are some of the most prized pieces in vintage Hawaiiana collections. Shaheen's Hawaiian labels include Alfred Shaheen, Shaheen's of Honolulu, Surf 'n Sand, Kiilani and Burma Gold Handprints. In his day, Shaheen was the only Hawaiian manufacturer to print his own fabrics, and using these fabrics, he created clothing for other retailers throughout the country. Some of these retailers include Andrades, McInerny, Liberty House, Waltah Clarke, Speedo, and Stetson. Therefore, it isn't unusual to come across double labels that include the names of others garment companies, or to find Shaheen's name on the selvedge of material used by retailers to create their clothing. In addition, Shaheen licensed his prints for manufacture in European countries and one may find a reference to a Shaheen European license printed on selvedge of material.[12]

Retirement and death

In 1988, after 40 years in business, Shaheen retired and closed his doors. On December 22, 2008, at the age of 86, Shaheen died due to complications from diabetes.[3]

Legacy

Museum exhibits

References

  1. ↑ "Alfred Shaheen Died". ElvisNews.com. Archived from the original on 8 January 2009. Retrieved 2009-01-22.
  2. ↑ "Thanks, Alfred Shaheen, for giving us the Hawaiian shirt", Steve Busfield, guardian.co.uk, January 6, 2009.
  3. 1 2 "Alfred Shaheen, garment industry pioneer, dies at 86", Claire Noland, Los Angeles Times, January 4, 2009.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 "Beyond Island Wear", Paula Rath, Humanities, The Magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities, March/April 2013.
  5. 1 2 3 "Leaders & Success: The Hawaiian Shirt Monarch", Brian J. Arthurs, Investor's Business Daily, March 6, 2009.
  6. ↑ "Alfred Shaheen, Giant of the Garment Industry", Gordon Y.K. Pang, The Honolulu Advertiser, December 25, 2008.
  7. ↑ "The Aloha Shirt: Spirit of the Islands", Dale Hope with Gregory Tozian, 2000.
  8. ↑ "Alfred Shaheen Died". ElvisNews.com. Archived from the original on 8 January 2009. Retrieved 2009-01-22.
  9. 1 2 3 4 "The Celebration of Ethnic Diversity in Alfred Shaheen's Textile Designs", Linda Arthur Bradley, PhD, HI Fashion: The Legacy of Alfred Shaheen, November 10, 2012–February 4, 2013.
  10. ↑ "Alfred Shaheen's Influence Beyond the Hawaiian Shirt", Catharine Hamm, Los Angeles Times, October 21, 2012.
  11. 1 2 3 "Alfred Shaheen", Mike Gordon, The Honolulu Advertiser, July 2, 2006.
  12. 1 2 3 4 Official website
  13. 1 2 "Alfred Shaheen: Pioneer of the Hawaiian Shirt", Time Magazine, 2009.
  14. ↑ "Fashion Forward", Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi, Hawai'i Magazine, December 2012.
  15. ↑ "Hawaii's Alfred Shaheen: Fabric to Fashion", San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles, May 18, 2010-August 8, 2010.
  16. ↑ "HI Fashion: The Legacy of Alfred Shaheen", Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum.
  17. ↑ "East Meets West: Cultural Influence in Alfred Shaheen's Textile Designs", Linda Arthur Bradley, PhD, Washington State University.

External links

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