Post #106035 by Humuhumu on Tue, Aug 3, 2004 5:42 PM

Great question, and I look forward to seeing the responses.

Re: generic mugs, I've always figured that these mugs were used by the many, many tiki restaurants that were too small (either in revenues, or in thinking) to have their own custom mug.

I've gotten the impression that much of the tiki decor that people had in their homes was available mainly through catalogs. I don't know if the items were in their own tiki-themed catalogs, or if they were part of larger, more general catalogs. And where did people get these catalogs (or am I mistaken, and they were only used by wholesalers)?

Clearly, in areas like Southern California, there were places like Oceanic Arts (OA wasn't the only one, they had competition back then that they've outlived). Perhaps there used to be places like OA in other cities that are now long gone & forgotten. How common was it, though, for homes outside of SoCal to be heavily outfitted in tiki back in the day?

I think that Witco had a few showrooms around the country. I would imagine that their items were available through other furniture stores, too, via the catalog. Keigs can fill us in on all that, I'm sure.

The "current" tiki trend has been popping up every summer for the past few years. It's just retailing shorthand for Summer Party Ware. I imagine we'll see it pop up again next summer, too. Over time, it'll mutate into something else. It was more hula girlish a couple of summers ago. Next year it'll probably be flamingos.