Be global suppliers of Hawaiian shirts

A few swallows don’t make a Summer Collection. But news from America is that Hawaiian shirts, those short-sleeved, printed fabric summerwear, are making a comeback. In these genuinely tropical climes, we’re unsure whether they — as ‘Hawaii shirts’ à la ‘Hawaii chappals’ with their airy connotations here — ever went out of fashion.

Be that as it may, this is good news, especially with everyone talking about global supply chains these days as if Jackie Shroff is making a comeback with one of them dangling around his neck. But the white-shirted PC crowd are already at it. ‘[Hawaiian shirts] could be seen as fashionable embodiments of the history of American colonisation, imperialism and racism against Hawaii’s indigenous inhabitants,’ the ironically named Princeton Historian Zara Anishanslin (her name could have been Mango or H&M, one supposes) says disapprovingly.

Considering India has no strained history with America’s 50th state, we could jolly well take up the global production of the ‘Hawaii shirt’. Thankfully, the safari suit, with any British Raj connotation — it’s more Harshad Mehta-era, actually — is unlikely to return. And while some prospective MLAs are donning variants of the old ‘sola topee’ in ‘Solar Bangla’ saheb-style to brave the Bengal election heat, Hawaiian shirts, with their bright colours, have a bright future