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Tropical print camp shirts feeling a raising tide of popularity

The Hawaiian shirt is no longer reserved for the tacky tourist.

While seemingly a less-than-ideal garment for the promotional wearables industry, these bold and gaudy shirts can fill the needs of a wide spectrum of organizations with distinctly different goals. Following the youth-driven frenzy for kitsch -- Hawaiian shirts included -- in the retail market, the demand for promotional shirts with loud patterns is booming. Hawaiian shirts are hip again, and everybody from Microsoft to Coors is buying.

"It's a different kind of product. It's out of the norm," says John Gallagher, owner of Atlanta-based promotional products distributor The Promo Shop, of Hawaiian shirts' growing popularity. "It's not your average, everyday polo."

With clients ranging from government agencies to non-profit organizations, Gallagher sees an increased interest in "new and exciting products." With Hawaiian shirts, he adds, "You're not competing with the T-shirt items. This way you're in command as a distributor. It separates you from the competition."

One manufacturer that specializes in Hawaiian shirts is Tampa, Fla.'s Fast Lane Clothing Company.

"It seems like over the past two years that one item (the Hawaiian shirt) has outsold our other products[ldots]eight to one," said Fast Lane owner Lori Davis.

Currently, Fast Lane makes camp-style shirts with an open collar, elbow-length sleeves, and double-needle construction. Davis' clients can choose 12 different tropical patterns, but Fast Lane can also provide Graphic design support for groups with an interest in a customized pattern (see related story on page 44).

The corporate market for Hawaiian shirts, Davis notes, is largely based on "corporations sending groups on (incentive-based) vacations and cruises, or maybe having a luau."

In Davis' mind, no other promotional wearable better complements such rewards and events.

Likewise, Lew Klein, executive vice president of Scorpio Apparel, an industry supplier in Northbrook, Ill., feels that Hawaiian shirts are a perfect match for incentive programs that feature trips to exotic locales.

Scorpio produces a 100-percent cotton camp shirt with six buttons and an open collar with tropical patterns guaranteed not to fade. Klein says the hospitality industry is a big user of Scorpio products ("We're all over Florida like a cheap suit," he jokes), in addition to less-expected sectors.

"Every major computer company has bought from us, every major insurance company has bought from us, auto dealers, across the board," Klein notes, adding that all deals went through promotional products distributors.

The bold, can't-miss look of a Hawaiian shirt also lends itself well to situations where making a strong impression is a must. Stuart Rosenthal, owner of ASAP, a promotional products distributor located in Walnut Creek, Calif., recalls the story of a client, a software company, that sought promotional Hawaiian shirts.

"They were going to a trade show and they wanted to stand out," Rosenthal remembers. Their goal was to "stand out from the thundering herd and (the Hawaiian shirt) worked." While that was the first request Rosenthal had fielded for such wearables, he understands his client's rationale, noting, "I think people do Hawaiian shirts because you don't expect it."

Like the Fast Lane Clothing Company, Seminole, Fla.-based Superior Uniform Group produces a line of cotton and poly-cotton Hawaiian shirts with 12 different patterns. Larry Spies, Superior's national accounts manager, tags another corporate market for the Hawaiian shirt: casual days.

While it is not yet common to see flowered patterns roving the mainland cubicles, on "Aloha Friday" in Hawaii, "Everybody wears aloha wear," including print shirts and mu-mu's with the boldest of patterns, says Spies. "(Distributors) can promote that idea on the mainland."

For companies in the other 49 states, Spies suggests that a more subdued "local" print can easily cut the casual Friday mustard, while the "tourist prints" may be more appropriate as eye-catchers at special occasions.

Spies himself wears Hawaiian shirts to work and wholeheartedly endorses them, noting, "I find them easy to maintain, really comfortable, and I get a lot of comments on them."

Fast Lane's Davis believes that the increased demand for promotional Hawaiian shirts crossed over from the retail arena, for which she is also a supplier. "We have found the demand is high in both," she notes. Like the polo shirt in 1997 and the camp shirt in 1998, the Hawaiian shirt made a big splash into the promotional market in 1999. Davis sees each breakthrough as a result of previous retail success.

At first glance, the loud and brash Hawaiian shirt might not seem like the best item to pitch to staid corporate clients. However, the product's versatility immediately proves this theory wrong.

"It's a fashion statement, like all apparel is," says The Promo Shop's Gallagher. "A smart distributor would say, 'This is the next thing.'"

Eric Peterson is a Denver-based writer and frequent contributor to Wearables Business.

When you decorate, don't lose the message

Decorating Hawaiian shirts with corporate logos presents a unique set of problems -- and possibilities.

The multiple colors and often intense graphics of these garments can often obscure subtle logos.

One way to completely sidestep such a hurdle is by commissioning a custom pattern and incorporating the message or logo(s) into the design.

Instead of, say, a repeating pattern or palm trees and parrots, why not a pattern of palm trees, parrots and the client's product or logo?

While it often requires an order of at least 1,500 shirts, many suppliers do custom Hawaiian patterns designed for their corporate clients.

Superior Uniform Group recently did a series of custom shirts for Hawaii Bus Lines that incorporated a bus into a bright floral pattern; Scorpio Apparel has designed prints for both Captain Morgan's Rum and Coors Brewing Company. Custom patterns allow companies yet another avenue for brand enhancement and extension, says Superior's Spies, and a brightly-colored, hard-to-forget avenue at that.

"They're the up-and-coming thing, I believe," he beams.

These same suppliers who do custom patterns are well aware that the majority of their stock shirts will be embellished, so the stock designs often leave a relatively "quiet space" around the left chest, where an embroidered logo would typically be placed.

Fast Lane Clothing Company's Lori Davis suggests a stark contrast between the color of embroidery and the color of a shirt's pattern. That will help the logo stand out on an already loud shirt.

While embroidering a sleeve or left chest is a fairly simple task, a pocket usually proves less accessible. To avoid construction-related decorating difficulties, Davis explains, "We will embroider the pocket, then put the garment together." Screenprinting a "white puff" is often a less-expensive option, she adds.

Scorpio Apparel's Lew Klein is less zealous when it comes to screen-printing on Hawaiian shirts.

"It turns a Cadillac into a Pinto," he says. He recommends embroidering with "a thread that offsets the pattern's color." Such a decorating strategy, at its best, can result in a more distinctive and memorable logo.

You do that on a Hawaiian shirt, and you've got one promotional product that's going to get noticed.

Eric Peterson