What does Santa wear to Photo Shoots

Well it is that time of year again where I am besieged with requests for Holiday shirts but my number one customer that stands out this year is probably good old Santa Claus. Seems there is a movement among professional photographers who are doing Christmas photos for families to have their photos taken on the beach with a Santa who wears red velvet pants and a red Hawaiian shirt.
I was first notified of this in a most unusual way. I used to put my home address on my Hawaiian shirt website accepting exchanges until I was visited at 8pm by someone who had a photo shoot to do with a family and he was supposed to play the role of Santa.

Now I am a careful person and when I saw this huge guy knocking at my door at 8pm I roused my own big guy from his recliner and told him to go see what was the matter…. He opened the door and our visitor started the conversation by saying “Please help me I need a red Hawaiian shirt tonight”! 

Personally I thought he was drinking just a little too much alcoholic egg nog but my husband thought him funny so he invited him to follow us to the Wave Shoppe Hawaiian Shirt store in Downtown Escondido and we would help him find just the right shirt for his red velvet pants……..

So… Santa followed us to our store and he chose a beautiful red shirt for his photo shoot so I bagged the red Hawaiian shirt with orchids and sent him on his merry way and we heard him exclaiming as he drove out of sight that Wave Shoppe has the best customer service this night.

 

Clothing for a Christmas without Snow

Ho ho ho merry Christmas and all of that. I have to be honest and state that it's nearly impossible to get in the Christmas spirit when you live in a state where it does not snow, such as southern California. I grew up in the Midwest in northern IL where we had temps as low as 40 below zero and snow, lots of traffic crippling snow. SOCAL weather in the winter is usually somewhere between 65 and 80 degrees in the winter months and temps in the low 50s at night is the norm.

Nonetheless I do my best to surround myself with things that remind me of Christmas. The vast majority of those items consist of the usual suspects, cookies, lights, television shows with the likes of Frosty the snowman, Grinch, holiday themed clothing, etc.

Why just yesterday I pulled the Santa shirt (pictured) from the back of my closet and placed it in my regular rotation. Since I work in a office and never get dirty, I should be able to wear the surfing Santa Hawaiian shirt 2 or 3 times a week before Christmas day.

One big advantage I have over other people is that since we actually own and operate a brick and mortar Hawaiian shirt store as well as a ecommerce website that lets us sample trends Internationally. We can quickly spot seasonal trends in specific shirting designs and adapt as needed. There are some prints that sell much better in the winter than they do in the spring or summer.

Take for example a mens red Hawaiian shirt with hibiscus flowers, while the combination is popular year round, sales for this particular shirt nearly triple during the holidays. The red Hawaiian shirts with orchid flowers are also very popular for Christmas. Some people buy them for gifting, and some simply buy them so they have something new to wear in holiday colors. These shirts are almost the same color red as holly berries.

Sales for women's clothing ramp up as well, but the real stars during the Christmas season are not women's Hawaiian shirts, it's the Hawaiian muumuu dresses that get all of the sales action, especially items like this navy blue mid-calf Hawaiian muumuu dress which is almost impossible to keep in stock during peak sales weeks. If your living in a warm weather state and are suffering from the same symptoms, swing by our store or visit our website and treat yourself to something with a little Aloha.

Mele Kalikimaka

Beer Shirts Hawaiian Style

With beer consumption on the constant rise its easy to see why the market is ever expanding, especially with the growth in craft beers. Hawaii is no exception, there are over a dozen full blown breweries and or brew pubs that brew beer in Hawaii. And lord know how many micro brewery's and craft brewers there are.

So whether you are a beer worshiper from Hawaii or stuck on the mainland wishing you were drinking beer in Hawaii, it's safe to say that beer in general has a pretty strong foothold.

With a plethora of beer themed items on the market you can really go overboard in broadcasting your love for beer. There is everything from key chains, signage, gifts, decorations, beer cookbooks etc. and the list goes on and on.

And them we have clothing to contend with such as beer themed t-shirts and you can even obtain a Hawaiian shirt adorned with beer bottles which also allows you to kill two birds with one stone if your gifting a Hawaiian shirt lovin beer drinker.

The beer shirt pictured is a really popular shirt in our store. Be it the detail in the beer bottles, matched button line and pocket, the navy blue color. or the hibiscus flowers, it's undeniably one of our best selling novelty shirts.

This timeless Hawaiian beer shirt is also available in our big Hawaiian shirt section on the website as well as in-store. The Wave Shoppe labeled shirt are graded all the way up to 5X and are overcut so they are guaranteed to have more wiggle room vs. our competitors. That's an important detail, especially if you are a big man searching for a well fitting shirt.

How to properly dispose of a Hawaiian shirt

As revered symbols of freedom and Aloha, all Hawaiian shirts must be treated with the utmost respect, especially when it becomes time to part ways with the magnificent shirt you have been wearing for the last 5 to 10 years.

 

According to a renowned and almost ancient Hawaiian shirt god "The shirt, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a well-fitting garment for public display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by first donning the garment and attending one last luau before deciding its ultimate fate."

 

Follow the steps in this guide below to dispose of a worn or damaged Hawaiian shirt and you will be performing the task with the respect that it deserves.

 

1.    Donate the shirt to a qualified organization such as a second hand thrift store. Companies such as the Salvation Army or Goodwill are always happy to take the colorful shirts off your hands. Donating is a great way to subject another individual to your taste in clothing and at a discount they will appreciate. Be a good donator, wash the shirt one last time and inspect the shirt for any loose buttons, fix if needed. When delivering the shirt, or shirts, don’t wad them up and put them in the bottom of a bag with a bunch of other items. Place each shirt on a table and fold them nicely before placing them in a bag. Don’t disrespect your soon to be donated shirts by throwing them in a pile on the ground, fold a shirt in the same manner as a professional laundry service would.

2.    Repurpose the shirt. As strange as it may sound there are a lot of uses for a worn out Hawaiian shirt. Cut it up into a strip and use it as a decorative band around the crown of a hat. You could also have the better parts of the shirt repurposed. Any seamstress can easily transform parts of your old shirt into a bow tie or even a outfit for your favorite pet, such as a dog or parrot. Contact a local quilter and cut a deal to have them repurposed into a beautiful Hawaiian quilt.

3.    Respectfully burn the shirts. Often some shirts are so badly worn that burning is one of the few options left. If your wardrobe has reached this point we would say that it’s a good time to dig a pit and cook up a piglet for a luau, line the bottom of the pit with rocks and then add your old Hawaiian shirts followed by your wood and you will have a great lining for your pit.

4.    Take a final moment to pay respect to the shirts. Often these Hawaiian shirts have been your only friend and they were always there to lift your spirits, rain or shine. Focus your thoughts on the symbolism and always think of the good times and if need be discuss with family members what the shirts meant to you.

5.    Treat yourself to new Hawaiian shirts. Your will have a void in your sole and no quote rings as true as “out with the old, and in with the new”. We recommend grabbing your credit card and going online to Wave Shoppe Hawaiian shirts and using it to purchase replacement Hawaiian shirts as quickly as you can. The last thing you want to spend your life doing is mourning the loss of some old worn out shirt, a new one will magically create new memories in no time.

 

 

Hues of Orange Clothing

Orange colors stir-up more controversy than any other color. Hues of orange are often associated with Halloween and fall and the changing of the seasons. But in many cultures orange is considered to be a "joyous color", representing the aspect of happiness, which lifts ones spirits and stimulates both the man wearing it, as well as the casual observer.  

 

Orange is a extremely vibrant color that demands attention. It's associated with oranges, joy, sunshine, and the Hawaiian tropics, and represents intense and eager enjoyment, fascination, joy, creativity and determination. Garments such as orange Hawaiian shirts are a good example of combining all of those aspects into a wearable garment. Colors such as black, delft blue, cream or ivory, and denims match up well with orange.  

 

It's interesting that Halloween is associated with the color orange because outside of carving pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns, the color really doesn't have much of a connection with the yearly celebration. We had mentioned that orange is symbolic of the tropics, but what we should have added is that comparison if further re-enforced when something like a shirt is teamed with foliage and a flock of parrots.

List of Hawaiian Stores in San Diego

I have come to the conclusion that much of the population in southern California really doesn't know the geographic boundaries of San Diego, or that North County businesses are still part of San Diego County.

If you look at any map of San Diego County you will see that it's borders extent all the way up to San Clemente, which then turns into Orange County. Having said that, I have decided to compile a small list of the known, as well as some little known stores that are Hawaiian themed. Some sell Hawaiian clothing, some sell food, some sell fresh flower leis. Some are predominantly Hawaiian and some are not.

• Wave Shoppe Hawaiian Shirts, Downtown Escondido
• Green Tea Hawaii, Westfield North County Mall
• Hansen's Surf Shop, Encinitas
• Ohana Creations, Carlsbad
• Motu Hawaii, Pacific Beach
• Marukai Living, Kearney Mesa
• Island Hoppers, San Diego
• South Pacific Shore Hawaiian Clothing, National City (I didn't give them a link to their website because customers say they are never open).

There are probably a few other places like Wal-Mart, Target etc. that have some seasonal offerings that are Hawaiian, such as Home Depot sells Tiki statues and decoration during summer months.

But we prefer to shop the smaller mom and pop stores in San Diego County because without our continues support they will be gone.

You can also find Hawaiian products such a imported shirt, leis and trinkets in many of the surf shacks that dot the beach communities and boardwalks.


Mahalo

Wholesale Madness: Act I

I was lamenting about the early days of our Hawaiian shirt business, we even had a few individuals tell us that the idea of going into retail and manufacturing was pure madness, but we went through with it anyway. I would love to tell you that the retail sales launched our bustling business, but that wouldn't be the whole truth.

Sure we had enough online orders to wet our whistle, but it was the small orders that we sold in bulk, and at a narrow profit margin mind you, that really moved us forward. We also quickly realized that the term wholesale had different meanings to different people. To us, buying wholesale meant purchasing a container or semi trailer full of garments. To others it meant that anyone with a business license should be able to buy a dozen or so shirts at the same discounts they get from their vendors.

We once took the large purchase route with a purchase of Hawaiian leis, we shared as container coming to port in Los Angeles. Let me tell you that we were not sure if we had the room to store pallets of them, nor did we know they would start degrade over time. We just couldn't phantom the logistics needed to do that with Hawaiian shirts, plus we were leaning towards making them in the USA.

In the end we took the middle ground and manufactured Hawaiian shirts with our Wave Shoppe label here on the mainland and cut a deal with a Oahu based Hawaiian shirt company to manufacture and sew our camp shirt style shirts, that way we could offer our customers Hawaiian shirts wholesale.

For the finicky customer we could offer camp shirts made in Hawaii and even more sophisticated button-up Hawaiian shirts that were made on the mainland, which also opened up additional shipping options. Customers were pleased and we are still here 10 years later.

Mahalo

Famous Men in Tacky Hawaiian Aloha Shirts

When it comes to wearing tacky Hawaiian shirts it's a mans world, few things bring out the Aloha in a man than a brightly colored button up shirt with big bold colors and tropical flowers representing the Hawaiian islands.

Throughout the years countless numbers of people have visited Oahu, the big island of Hawaii, Maui, Lanai etc. and the male visitors have always had one common thread (pardon the pun) with that being they all wore colorful often tacky Hawaiian shirts.

Whats tacky you say? For starters how about a mens Hawaiian shirt with beer bottles or even something really sick looking like the official ugly Hawaiian shirt from Wave Shoppe.

Be it a tropics loving man from Nebraska or famous people like the Tom Selleck and Will Pharrell, just about everyone has worn one at least once.

Being a guy myself I still can not tell you what it is about these shirts that I find so attractive.

In a lot of foreign countries the women associate flowery shirts on men as an indicator that they are gay, though I assure you that flowery shirts are a very poor indicator of your sexuality.

In my opinion the real reason men wear these styles of shirts is that they work a lot of hours with little time to just kick back and relax.

Wearing shirts with tropical flowers and palm trees etc. often has a Zen like effect that creates a direct connection between the man and the Hawaiian islands