Alfred Shaheen

Alfred Shaheen (January 31, 1922 – December 22, 2008) was a textile industrialist who is credited with popularizing the Hawaiian shirt.

"Alfred Shaheen is arguably the father of the Hawaiian fashion industry. It was Shaheen who brought Hawai‘i fashion to the world. His unique and artful prints and sophisticated, fashion-forward silhouettes brought national, and even international, attention to island fashion from the 1940s through the 1980s. It was Shaheen who took aloha attire from casual tourist wear to elegant style statements."

"He was a true visionary," said Linda Arthur, a professor and curator for the Washington State University Department of Apparel, Merchandising, Design and Textiles. "He started in a place (Hawaii) where there was no industry to speak of and created one from the ground up, creating a truly vertically integrated business."

"Island textiles icon Alfred Shaheen was among the founders of the modern Hawaiian garment industry, helping revolutionize the business not only through innovative designs but by establishing a business model that allowed him to introduce Hawaiian wear to people around the world."