Post #145141 by freddiefreelance on Mon, Mar 7, 2005 10:28 AM

On 2005-03-06 21:26, Monkeyman wrote:
"Started in the 1960s. Often called Inside out shirts, these were made with the backside of the fabric intentionally facing outward. This was popular partly because the backward cloth made a shirt look almost like it was faded instead of brand new- A well worn favorite aloha shirt to some young men (such as surfers) showed you were a long term resident, not a tourist. In later years this toned down look came to be almost a requirement for aloha shirts worn to work in Hawaii by professional men."

Basically the same as what I'd heard: tourists wanted to look like they'd owned & washed a shirt many times, like the locals did, so a shirtmaker started turning the material inside out.

I also remember reading that the first "Aloha Shirts" were made with leftover Kimono cloth, and that there was still someone making them from antique Kimonos, maybe the inside-out shirts are trying to capture that antique cloth look, too.