Meeting Mr. Hawaii

I’ve never been to Hawaii, but I have 1,000 Hawaiian shirts. All of them collected in Philadelphia, which is as far as you can get from Hawaii and still be in the United States!

No, I’ve never been to Hawaii. I’m a poor starving artist. In another career, I was a news photographer — another career to get rich at!

A trip to Hawaii is thousands of dollars. Although, I do have a cousin there…

Thirty years ago I gave my friend $40 and told her to buy me some Hawaiian shirts. She got off the plane wearing 12 Hawaiian shirts. She came down the ramp, she took them off one by one.

One, two, three and then all of the sudden I went from having no Hawaiian shirts to having 12 Hawaiian shirts.

Here is a tutorial for you: a coconut button will always outrank a coin button. Look here, these are coconut buttons, this a particular good shirt because it has the button loop. It doesn’t have the matching pocket so that takes it down a notch.

What’s the appeal?

Here is my thinking: I don’t care what I’m wearing cause I don’t see it. I only care what you’re wearing. I can dress as ridiculous as I want and it won’t hurt me. I dress to entertain. I wear them around the clock. I wear them in the winter. If people see a Hawaiian shirt in December they smile. I get a lot of smiles. You immediately warm up, you feel a breeze.

Some people come here and try to figure out sizing. ‘Oh I want a tight fitting Hawaiian shirt,’ they say. Well, that’s an oxymoron! Hawaiian shirts are supposed to flap in the breeze. There is an implied ocean breeze with every Hawaiian shirt. It’s much more than clothing, it’s an attitude —an attitude that you put on.

My attitude is that I’m in it for the long haul. I’ve been collecting them for 30 years and have two books (published).

My books are an interesting story in itself. Twenty-five years ago I founded a group called the Philadelphia Dumpster Divers, which are artists that make artwork out of salvaged material.

Mr. Hawaii early on in his career as a dumpster diver. His commitment to the Hawaiian shirts has not wavered despite the years.

See, back then all the dumpster divers collected things. In my case, it was Hawaiian shirts. So an article was written with a picture of me and 50 Hawaiian shirts.

A few weeks later I get a call from a Nancy Schiffer who tells me she owns a small press. Well, this ‘small press’ puts out one coffee book a day! If you collect anything: pipes, handkerchiefs, coffee pots, teas or anything that can be collected — there is a Schiffer book on it!

They borrowed 600 Hawaiian shirts. Steamed clean each one, photograph the front, the back, and the label and had them all back to me in three days. From that she printed two books. So a lot of the shirts you see here are in the book.

I did complain to her. I told her that I didn’t have any world class shirts. There are some shirts that are thousands of dollars, and rightfully so, they are beautiful works of art, but I don’t have any. After all, Philadelphia is a good distance away from Hawaii.

I tell Nancy, ‘You are doing a book, shouldn’t it be the most spectacular examples?’

‘No, no, we are doing a book for designers. We want standard issue. We want the common day-to-day.’

So that’s how I came to have the two books on Hawaiian shirts!

A close up of a silk Hawaiian shirt owned by Mr. Hawaii. It reads: There are some things beyond sheer utility. Electricity did not banish the lowly candle.

Here is a K-Mart, this Hawaiian shirt is 60 years old! This is a collectors item, it’s not just a Hawaiian shirt but it’s a K-mart!

It’s an absolute fact: Hawaiian shirts are the closest thing to dressing like a clown and still being accepted.

Just as a further tutorial, you get extra credit if the shirt has the named islands on it. You see, the shirt becomes an actual map.

I think Hawaiian shirts affect other people more than the wearer because you are largely blind to what you wear. Unless you walk in front of the mirror all the time, you don’t know what you’re wearing. You just see it for five minutes, you don’t see it as an ensemble. But everybody else, on the trolleys going by, in the workplace, they’re the ones who see it!

I got rid of all the mirrors in my house. I live by myself so there is no one to dress me or tell me ‘you are going out like that?’

The animated Mr. Hawaii stands in front of many of his other collections including Army medals and his own lamps made from salvaged materials.

I’ve had to get rid of some shirts. But what do I do in my spare time? I go to thrift stores to look for more Hawaiian shirts. It’s a real push and pull. What I’m actually doing is fishing. The shirts are the fish, but you don’t keep the fish. Although I do, I still keep about 400 shirts in a tiny house a few blocks away.

It’s a quest. It’s a hunt. I’m the hunter-gatherer.

What would happen if everyone wore Hawaiian shirts? Philadelphia would be a happier city! But if everyone wears Hawaiian shirts then no one is special. With a Hawaiian shirt, you stand out.

People tell me that I couldn’t move to California because everyone in California is just like me.

But here I’m doing major things because I’m the only one doing it. I like that, the big fish in the small pond.

Mr. Hawaii is Neil Benson, an ex-news photographer with work published in the New York Times and Time Magazine. He will have a photography exhibit at the Philadelphia History Museum in July 2015.

This piece was created using the Studs Terkel technique.