The Aloha Shirt That Saved Our Family Luau Photo

Every year for Kimo's birthday, we throw a backyard luau and take a family photo. Last year's photo was a disaster. I called everyone over after the plates were full, and what we got was a picture of twenty people who had each dressed for a different occasion. One nephew was in a tie. My cousin wore a bright athletic jersey. Kimo had on an old faded shirt from a fishing trip, and I cannot even describe what I was wearing. My sister-in-law framed it anyway. It hangs in her hallway like a warning, and we all look at it every time we visit.

This year I decided the men were going to match, at least in spirit. I asked around, read a lot of reviews, and ordered Kimo a HISDERN aloha shirt, the men's short-sleeve button-down with the camp collar, a few weeks before the luau. It came quickly, and the first thing I noticed was how light it felt in the package. Kimo tried it on and it fit him right out of the box. His usual size, no pulling across the shoulders, no gap at the chest button, the collar lying flat the way it should. I read the reviews from other families who bought the same shirt for the same reason, and the one thing everybody said was that it ran true to size, which is rarer than you would think.

The fabric is soft, not the stiff kind that crackles when you move, and it breathes, which matters in Hilo where the air is warm and damp most of the year. The shirt has one chest pocket, which Kimo likes because he can carry his reading glasses when he sits by the taro patch in the garden. He wore it to church the Sunday after it arrived, and then the Sunday after that, and by the time the luau came around it was already the shirt he reached for first.

The day of the luau was warm and muggy, which is most days in Hilo. Kimo wore the HISDERN shirt with plain shorts, and the print did exactly what I hoped it would do in the photo. It read as Hawaii without shouting. The pattern was busy enough to look festive but calm enough that nobody's face got lost in it, and the fabric did not glare in the afternoon light the way some shiny shirts do. I had worried the shirt would look flat or too bright on camera, the way some prints do, but it did neither. When the photographer told everyone to squeeze in, Kimo stood in the back row and the shirt still carried the whole frame.

The photo came out better than any we have taken in years. The grandkids were in the shirts their mothers picked out, and somehow the whole thing looked like it belonged together. Poi, our little rescue dog, wandered into the front of the frame and the kids laughed, and my sister-in-law has not taken this one down to reframe it, which is the highest compliment she can give. She told me twice that everyone looked like themselves, which I took to mean the clothes did not fight the faces.

Kimo stood in the back row and the shirt still carried the whole frame.

After the luau, I washed the shirt in the machine on cold with the rest of the laundry, gentle cycle, and hung it on the lanai to dry. It wrinkled a little, the way a light shirt does when you line dry it, but it hung out within the hour. Kimo did not even ask me to iron it. He never asks me to iron anything, but still, I noticed. The collar kept its shape, the buttons stayed tight, and the print came out of the wash looking exactly the way it did going in.

Six months in, the shirt still looks the way it did the day it arrived. No fading, no fraying at the collar, no buttons loosening. Kimo has owned aloha shirts from fancier labels, and he wears this one more than all of them combined. It has been to Sunday church, to the beach, to family dinners, and to both rounds of holiday photos we have taken since the luau.

When we packed for a trip to the mainland to see family, I rolled the HISDERN shirt into the carry-on the way I roll everything, and it came out looking like it had been hanging in the closet the whole time. That is the kind of thing I care about, because nobody wants to arrive at a family dinner holding an iron. Kimo wore it the first night we were there, and his brother asked where he got it.

We have taken two sets of holiday photos since the luau, and Kimo reaches for the HISDERN shirt every time. It is the one he wants to be remembered in. I think that says more than anything I could tell you about thread counts or stitching. A shirt can be well made and still sit in the drawer. This one does not sit in the drawer. It does not need to be the loudest thing in the room to be the thing you remember.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If you are thinking about an aloha shirt for the man in your life, here is what I would say over coffee. Order his usual size, because the fit is honest. Expect a little wrinkling if you line dry it, and do not panic, it hangs out in an hour. The shirt is not fancy, and I would not pretend it is. It is a good, solid, comfortable aloha shirt that looks good on a person, and that is exactly what you want when the whole family is standing in the yard waiting for the photo. The print photographed the way it looked in person, the colors did not lie, and nobody's face got lost in the pattern. That is the shirt that saved ours.