Aloha Shirt « CHRISTOPHELOIRON®

Mister Freedom® x Sun Surf® Rock & Roll Shirt, SS2024 “Flying Saucers” edition, AREA 7161 collection. Made in Japan.

Joe Greene, art director…

Not meeting deadlines…

“Yeah, whatever, I don’t look nuthin’ like that pops!”

Mister Freedom® x Sun Surf “Rock’n’Roll” Shirt, SS2024 “FLYING SAUCERS” edition.
AREA 7161 collection.
Made in Japan.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!
We have the scoop: flying saucers have landed, and it happened right here in California, USA, at Area 7161 a few days ago. As announced on Japanese TV!

Background:
The topic of Unidentified Flying Objects has piqued public’s interest in the US starting in the 1930s…
Soon following America’s involvement in the WW2 conflict, US flyers on combat missions described unexplainable “fireballs” in the sky in both the European and Pacific Theaters. Those unexplained phenomena were coined as “Foo Fighters” at the time, origin of the term somewhat uncertain, maybe related to a popular 1940s comic strip.
In 1947, private pilot Kenneth Arnold’s alleged sighting of nine airborne shiny “boomerangs” helped seal the popular term “flying saucers” and sparked a “flying disc” sighting craze with Americans, not-only eager for exciting news after a draining world war, but reassessing their worldviews in the Atomic Age.
Another major event in ufology, well-publicized since, also happened in 1947. Known as the Roswell incident, this was an alleged UFO crash in a New Mexico desert ranch (Forster Ranch.) It was said that the crashed spaceship included its Alien pilots crew, who, interestingly, had been skilled-enough to travel through space from a distant planet, possessing the proper advanced technology, avoiding all kinds of meteors and space junk on the way, but failed to put on the breaks at the last minute! Go figure. For some, this was a mere weather balloon (or highly-classified surveillance balloon), for others a Russian secret weapon, an alien spaceship, a communist psychological warfare hoax aimed at destabilizing the USA, …, amongst the many interpretations. The event has also been considered as a mysterious military/CIA cover-up.
Some people even believe — to this day — that the crashed Roswell “UFO” spacecraft has been under reverse-engineering in a secret AREA 51 hangar for years, along with the bodies of its large-headed pilots…
It is generally accepted that most 1950s-60s UFO sightings in the USA were, in fact, shiny silver high altitude secret U-2 spy plane prototypes on test flights. But what do I know. My hunch is that the UFO pilots were distracted by all the cool music happening on Earth in the 1940s, and just missed their Roswell landing. Maybe they were staring at their cel phones and crashed?

For a serious historical timeline and much much broader background, Annie Jacobsen’s AREA 51 — a well-researched and fascinating book written in 2011 with an overwhelming amount of declassified intel — is a great read.

Full visuals/ramblings here.

Design inspiration:
We pulled out the old watercolors and brushes for the graphic. The original artwork was inspired by a blend of 1947 Roswell imagery, a twist of Giant Rock in the California High Desert, vintage UFO lore, a bit of imagination and a lot of artistic limitations, all that under the watchful eye of art director Joe Greene, also from another planet. For those interested, plenty making-of photos of the watercoloring process documented in the SS2024 preview.
The clumsy doodle was then translated by our friends and vintage “Aloha shirt” experts at Sun Surf® into a painstakingly-produced fabric print, for an authentic “Hawaiian shirt” feel.

Please note that some R&D/lookbook photos featured on this post show early prototypes (referred to Alpha & Bravo), with a slightly different graphic distribution on the front panels. These A & B protos are not what was produced. To better convey the initially-intended period traditional “vintage Hawaiian shirts” vibe with an authentic “Aloha” style graphic balance, final production (referred to as Charlie & Delta) has been adjusted to an off-set left/right front panel pattern.
Simply put, the desert landscape scene is intentionally out-of-synch on the shirt’s front panels, while it is presented in its uninterrupted glory on the back panel!
Of course, the fabric print of the single chest pocket is in perfect alignment with the body print, aka “matching pocket” in collectors’ jargon.
Fabric printing in Japan is done on traditional machines, using intricate printing procedures. As discussed on a recent CLUTCHMAN TV episode (RnR shirt convo starts at 03:00), a technique known as “overprinting” (necessitating 18 different screens!) had to be used to replicate the color gradation and shading of the original watercolor painting, instead of the somewhat faster “discharge printing” method. As Sugar Cane brand director Fukutomi Sensei mildly put it, “苦労しました” (kurō shimashita = it was not easy.)

For more visuals and heritage Aloha shirts knowledge — especially for one whose “flower shirt” expertise is limited to Magnum PI’s 80s red “Jungle Bird” pattern by Paradise Found — check out Sun Surf® well-documented reference books and current faithful vintage replicas of 1930s~1960s models. If you’re into the “From Here to Eternity” look, Sun Surf® has the goods!
Our friends at Sun Surf® deliver yearly collections under the guidance of Kobayashi San, Toyo Enterprise’s elusive current CEO, an avid and well-respected “aloha-shatsu” museum-quality collector. I tried to snap a current photo of Sacho San during our recent March 2024 mfsc show but he was gone the second I blinked!

On an industry-related note, even in the “slow fashion” world that MF® has opted to partake in since 2007, show samples are always cut/sewn under challenging pressure in order to meet a specific event (aka trade show) deadline. Things get even more challenging when a specific fabric has to be milled, or when a new original fabric print is a major part of the garment design! I’m always late with design directions/graphic submissions, and our friends at Toyo Enterprise will never cease to amaze me at pulling rabbits out of the hat to make things happen.

We started our Mister Freedom® x SUN SURF® collaboration back in 2015, kicking it off with the first of our “Rock & Roll” shirt, the “Action Packed” model, recently-released in black and white. Followed the boppin’ “Rocket 88” edition released during Spring 2016, available in all-cotton ivory, dark navy blue and mint green, a tribute to Rock & Roll’s early fifties roots. Randomly venturing to the burning Sahara sands, destination the French penal colonies of North Africa and their inked-up inmates, we then released the BIRIBI edition during Spring 2018, in white and dark navy.
To compliment our SS2019 mfsc “YUCATÁN” collection (story here), we then designed the “Yucatán Fiesta”, released in black and white.
Epic trips with the fam to Santa Catalina Island — and Dorothy and Otis Shepard — have inspired the Catalina model, in white and black.

In 2024, we are humbled again to have our latest doodle translated into a fancy 1940s-50s style rayon shirt!

The Mister freedom® x Sun Surf “Flying Saucers” Rock & Roll Shirt is designed in California by Mister Freedom® and manufactured in Japan by Sun Surf® and Sugar Cane Co, both divisions of Toyo Enterprise.

SPECS:
FABRIC:
100% rayon fabric, woven and printed in Japan with traditional fabric printing techniques.
Two color options, Charlie (original colorway), and Delta (subdued, “night time” colorway).

DETAILS:
* Limited edition collaboration with the Sun Surf® label.
* Body pattern/cut inspired by classic vintage 1940’s-50’s Aloha shirts.
* All original MF® fabric print, inspired by vintage UFO lore and the 1947 Roswell, NM, “flying saucer” case.
* Fabric printed with “overprinting” method, requiring 18 different color screens to achieve color gradation of original watercolor.
* 1940’s—50’s style open loop collar, aka Arafold-style spread collar.
* Single chest pocket with matching print pattern.
* Brown corozo wood buttons.
* MF® x Sun Surf® “Rock & Roll” woven rayon label and “AREA 7161” double labeling.
* Packaged is a fancy re-usable Sun Surf cardboard shirting box, featuring original MF® artwork inspired by vintage LP covers.
* Made in Japan in limited edition.

SIZING/FIT:
The Rock & Roll Shirt “Flying Saucers” (both Charlie and Delta colorways) comes ready-to-wear right out of the box. No need to soak.
We adopted the time-tested sizing of Sun Surf®’s Aloha shirts for this garment.
I wear a Medium in most mfsc shirting, and opted for a very comfortable Medium in this edition. True to size, not intended to be worn tight, or tucked-in, unless you’re very daring and hip.
See sizing chart for approximate measurements, measured straight out of the packaging box.

CARE:
We recommend professional dry clean only, in your local eco-friendly facility.
Delicate hand-washing in cold water with mild detergent + line dry is also an option.
Do NOT use machine/heat dryer.

Available from www.misterfreedom.com, our Los Angeles red brick HQ, and fine retailers around the World.
Email sales@misterfreedom.com or call 323-653-2014 with any questions unanswered above.
Thank you for your support,

Christophe Loiron
Mister Freedom®
©2024

The TAHITI Shirt, “Saigon Cowboy” mfsc Spring 2015

Who needs a shirt

: Celebrating Spring 2015

: Drop the joystick and read a book

The “TAHITI” Shirt
“Saigon Cowboy” mfsc Spring 2015 Collection.

The short tale of this Mister Freedom® “Tahiti Shirt” involves the Club Med village of a sun-drenched Greek island in the late 1950’s, and a young adventurer half my age.
In the Club Méditerranée tradition of their early beach-front vacation villages, GOs (Gentils Organisateurs, the nice staff) were often issued printed pareos, in order to stand out and better entertain the GM (Gentils Membres, the nice vacationers). Nothing spells fun-in-the-sun like Polynesian prints do. For the French, Tahiti is the ultimate exotic-sounding escape from the daily grind, known as metro/boulot/dodo (commute/work/sleep) by the Parisians. For baguette lovers, anything associated with Tahiti means H.O.L.I.D.A.Y.S (no, not Johnny), save for the nuclear mushrooms of Mururoa, maybe.

: Johnny HOLIDAY, USA

: Johnny HALLYDAY, France

: Bora Bora, anyone?

: Baguette lover in Bora Bora (1995)

: 780 miles from Tahiti, Mururoa Atoll nuclear testing (1970)

In some villages, these Tahiti-style colorful cloth wraps were cut & sewn into aloha tops by local tailors or whoever handled the sewing machine best. I own two of these vintage shirts, had them for years. Mine originally belonged to a young fellow who had done a short stint as a GO in Greece, sometime in 1957. For just a few months, but long enough to improve on his water ski and social skills, and shake the djebel dust and smell of war off his mind.
The year prior, he had been enjoying twelve months of bushwhacking in green fatigues in the arid Algerian mountains. Military service was mandatory in France in 1956, and if you had just missed ‘l’Indo‘, you were about ripe for ‘l’Algérie‘.
A French colony since 1830, Algeria had been at war with France since 1954, claiming back its autonomy. For Algerian nationalists who had closely watched the demise of the old French colonial powers in Indochina culminating in the Diem Bien Phu firework finale, independence didn’t seem like utopia anymore. If their Vietnamese comrades had done it, so could they. But generations of French Algeria-born Pieds-Noirs, harkis, …, and a coalition of rogue generals, were not giving up that easy. Ensued the epic and gruesome Guerre d’Algérie (1954-1962), a very touchy topic to this day between both countries. Just quote Charles De Gaulle’s “Je vous ai compris” (I understood you) to a Pied-Noir, and watch what happens… For one planning to vacation in Algiers over the holidays, mentioning the OAS while strolling in the Casbah will also prove a great ice breaker to meet friendly locals.
But like they say, one front at a time, we’ll get back to this one some other day…

After getting his diploma in paréo-ironing from the Greeks, our playboy waterski instructor made his way back to Algeria in the following years. This time roaming the mighty Sahara desert as a drilling scout for the CPA (Compagnie des Pétroles d’Algérie, an oil extracting venture in North Africa). While at it, he managed to give a pretty Pied-noir gal his GO shirt, and my Mum a new last name…

None of the green fatigues, but two of the Club Med “Tahiti” shirts along with old photo albums happened to survive my Dad’s tumultuous expat life. He had nothing but contempt for hoarding, a ‘give-it-all-away’ modus operandi not shared by my Mum who often resulted to hiding things in order to find then again! I have an inclination to not collect anything myself, but I admit the few old relics he did not succeed in getting rid of back then are priceless to me today. Gérard Loiron, you are missed.

: Kindly making a suggestion

: Ladies, please

: The Loiron’s

: Original 1950’s Club Med shirts

: Discreet product placement

Both shirts were sent to our Sugar Cane Co friends in Japan and the fabric and prints analyzed. Hats off to the Toyo textile experts who reconstituted the entire panel artwork without taking the vintage samples apart. The floral design is non-symmetrical, as can be seen on the paréo-ironing session photo, and the motif repeat was very difficult to recreate for the Sun Surf® Graphic Dept. But it seems there is nothing they can’t do when it comes to Aloha-type shirts. Otsukaresama deshita.

The base textile of our Tahiti shirt is reminiscent, in texture, of those vintage kitschy 1960’s/70’s cotton Hawaiian shirts sometimes referred to as ‘bark cloth’. In the 1940’s/50’s, a thick and heavy version of that dobby weave cotton cloth had become a standard feature in most American households, in the form of printed curtains and upholstery fabric.
All those vintage iterations were modern renditions of the ancient Hawaiian kapa (or tapa in Tahitian, meaning ‘the beaten thing’), the natural wood pulp bark cloth of early traditional Polynesian attire that so impressed Captain James Cook back in 1769. “This stuff is awesome! Where to cop?” he reportedly said on his final voyage to the Pacific Islands, before being clubbed on the beach. But you might want to double-check on that.

Our “Tahiti Shirt” in barkcloth-like cotton fabric comes in two color options, coined by the MF® Linguistic Dept as Moana (meaning the mighty Ocean ie. the Big Blue) and Ura (meaning red), for the sole purpose of qualifying you as the most fluent individual in Tahitian language of your neighborhood at this second.

: Doing the hula bop in pareo

: Pareo blouse by Lin Fung Chu, leading couturier of Papeete (1953)

: Tahiti ‘Voyage Through Paradise’ George T. Eggleston (1953)

At this point, a quite pertinent remark would be “how you planning to landfall that canoe in Saigon, son?“, in other words “The Nam?! Fun in the sun??!? wtf?!?!”
That’s when R&R comes in. No, not the devil’s music, I mean Rest & Recreation.
During their 12 or 13-month Vietnam tour, American soldiers could take a one-time leave out of Vietnam, for a maximum of 30 days. Jungle fatigues were dropped at the departure air base, khakis slipped on, and civvy clothing often rented at the destination. Popular escapes were Hawaii, Sydney, Bangkok, Hong Kong… from where souvenirs and loads of crusty epic stories were brought back.

Additionally, shorter in-country R&R were awarded to wary grunts with an urgent need to go cool off away from Agent Orange and Victor Charlie for a few days. The South China Sea waters of Cam Ranh Bay, Vung Tau, and the famed Da Nang China Beach saw many a sunburnt GIs come and go during the 10 years of the Vietnam war. Some days, those beaches almost looked like beaches at home, save for the M-16 of the US Marine lifeguard on tower duty, or the occasional bandages from hospital ships washing ashore. Sorry ’bout that.

Vung Tau Beach R&R (1966)

Cinephiles will also notice that the Mister Freedom® “Tahiti shirt” is a nod to the famous M*A*S*H* war comedy film and TV series, which featured characters (“Trapper John” or “Hawkeye”) flashing a floral shirt in the context of a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital. A wardrobe oxymoron, intended to highlights the level of gallows humor necessary in the field to help deal with the absurdity and brutality of war.

“... it was so far out, you couldn’t blame anybody for believing anything. Guys dressed up in batman fetishes, I saw a whole squad like that, it gave them a kind of dumb esprit. Guys stuck the ace of spades in their helmet bands, they picked relics off of an enemy they’d killed, a little transfer of power; they carried around five pound bibles from home, crosses, St. Christophers, Mezuzahs, locks of hair, girlfriends’ underwear, snaps of their families, their wives, their dogs, their cows, their cars, pictures of John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Martin Luther King, Huey Newton, the Pope, Che Guevara, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, wiggier than cargo cultists.”
(Excerpt from Michael Herr’s ‘Dispatches‘, correspondent for Esquire Magazine in Vietnam, 1967-1969.)

Anyways, the “Tahiti shirt” was designed in California by Mister Freedom® and manufactured in Japan in collaboration with Sugar Cane Co.

SPECS:

FABRIC:
100% cotton ‘bark cloth’ like dobby fabric base. 1950’s Polynesian floral design print replica. Fabric milled in Japan.

DETAILS:
* Original mfsc updated pattern, inspired by authentic 1950’s local-made tourist attire.
* Long sleeve.
* French style col requin (shark fin shape collar)
* Genuine coconut shell buttons.
* Matching single chest pocket.
* No back yoke.
* Side slits.
* Flat-felled seam chainstitch construction, narrow folder.
* High count 100% cotton tonal stitching.
* Limited edition.
* Made in Japan.

SIZING/FIT
The “Tahiti” shirt comes raw/unwashed and will shrink to tagged size after an original cold soak/line dry.
If you are a Medium in mfsc shirting, you are a Medium in this shirt.
We recommend an initial cold soak, spin dry and line dry. Please refer to sizing chart for measurements reflecting this method.

CARE:
Launder when hygiene dictates and common sense prevails.
Machine wash. Cold water, gentle cycle, eco-friendly mild detergent and line dry.

Available RAW/unwashed.
SIZES:
Small
Medium
Large
X-Large
XX-Large

RETAIL $269.95

Soon available from www.misterfreedom.com
Email sales@misterfreedom.com or call 323-653-2014 with any questions unanswered above.
Maururu for your support 🙂