Drawing from hundreds of interviews, newspaper and magazine archives, and personal memorabilia, the author evokes the world of the designers, seamstresses, manufacturers, and retailers of the Golden Age of the Aloha shirt (from the 30s through the 50s), who created the industry and nurtured it from its single-sewing-machine-shop beginnings to an enterprise of international scope and importance. Here, too, are the fun-loving 60s, interviews with collectors who preserve these shirts as fine works of art; and insights into the roles of coconut buttons, matched pockets, woven labels, and exotic fabrics in the evolution of the Aloha shirt.