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Firearms Guns Hawaiian Shirt
The return of the Hawaiian shirt has been celebrated in the style press, as celebrities including Bill Murray, Rihanna and Sophie Turner have been seen to wear them.
But according to Zara Anishanslin, a fellow at the Davis Center for Historical Studies at Princeton, people should think twice before wearing the garments.
Rihanna in Los Angeles on 29 March. Photograph: Rachpoot/Mega/GC Images
“They are the fashion equivalent of a plantation wedding,” said Anishanslin. “They could be seen as fashionable embodiments of the history of American colonization, imperialism and racism against Hawaii’s indigenous inhabitants. People might want to think twice about whether the look is worth the weight of its associative past.”
Hawaiian shirts have also been co-opted by the “Boogaloo” movement, white supremacists who advocate war against the federal government.
Initially made from leftover cloth intended for kimonos, the shirts were popularised by American veterans of the second world war. Soon Japanese motifs were replaced by Hawaiian ones and a cultural touchstone was born.
About five years ago, Hawaiian shirts became part of the “dadcore” trend. Then the “Boogaloo” movement chose to combine them with camouflage trousers, body armour and weapons.
“It might not be an aesthetically pleasing combination but it’s a smart one, in terms of picking out your fellow members of the group in the crowd,” Anishanslin said.
Armed ‘Boogaloo Bois’ near the Virginia state capitol on 18 January. Photograph: Samuel Corum/EPA
Last year, Dr Reece Jones of the University of Hawaii wrote about how the brightly coloured shirts came to symbolise something much darker.
“I know this seems like a joke and easy to dismiss,” he wrote, “but that is part of [the Boogaloo Bois’] strategy, to lure in young men and downplay what they are talking about. It is deadly serious. These men are preparing for a civil war.”
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