Purse Tales: The Illusive Alfred Shaheen Purse

In 2010 I purchased the Workman Publishing Purse A Day calendar. Imagine my surprise when while flipping through the calendar, I came across a purse on Jan. 5, 2010 from the Amsterdam Museum of Bags and Purse, that I didn’t even know existed.

There it sat, a bag with orange glass handles sporting the Koi pattern of Alfred Shaheen.  I was familiar with Shaheen’s Koi pattern. It is one of the more popular Shaheen fabrics.  Skirts, tops and dresses made of it sell for a couple of hundred dollars (when you can find them).

I own a piece of the fabric that I’ve kept with a thought of making pillows. I have seen many Shaheen clothes and fabrics, but I had never seen a Shaheen purse. That one picture began my search.

Alfred Shaheen

To start, you need to understand who Alfred Shaheen was. While his name may not be familiar to you, I guarantee you are familiar with his work.

Alfred Shaheen designs are the epitome of the Hawaiiana style of the 1950s and 1960s.

In 1961, Elvis Presley’s “Blue Hawaii” album and posters featured Elvis wearing an Alfred Shaheen shirt. “Gidget Goes Hawaiian” and “Hawaii Five-O” (the 1968 version with Jack Lord) both sport Shaheen fashions.

Shaheen got his start in the fashion industry following his service in the Army Air Corps during World War II. He returned to Oahu and began working in his family’s garment manufacturing business.

At the time, the Shaheen family was importing fabrics to create their garments. Shaheen realized that to grow the business he would need to stop importing fabric and start manufacturing it himself. So he built the most comprehensive textile printing, garment manufacturing and retail company in Hawaii

Shaheen started small with a print plant made of junkyard parts that was housed in a Quonset hut  repurposed after WWII. By 1952, he was printing more than 60,000 yards of fabric per month under the label

By 1956 he had expanded to create an $8 million factory, showroom and office complex. By 1959 he employed more than 400 people, sold garments worldwide, owned his own chain of retail stores in Hawaii and was grossing more than $4,000,000 annually (or $30,000,000 in today's money).

Shaheen’s designs were inspired by Hawaii, the South Pacific and Asia and silk-screened onto fabric. The fabric would then be cut and sewn into Shaheen’s fashion designs. The artists, printers, screeners, finishers and seamstresses were known as Alfred Shaheen's City of Craftsmen.

Shaheen was responsible for a number of advances in design and dyes. He, in conjunction with Dr. Edmund Lutz, created more than 100 metallic colors, an achievement in the 1950s.  He also pioneered the concept of a pop-up shop in an existing boutique. His “East Meets West” stores were unique stores within a store. It also coined the phrase “East meets West.”

In 1988 Shaheen retired and closed his doors after 40 years in business.

“He did many things, but most importantly he introduced Hawaiian clothing and ethnic textile design to the people of the world, and in doing so forever changed the global landscape of textiles, fashion and design,” said Linda Arthur Bradley, PhD, Washington State University.

The Bag

So knowing who Shaheen was, I immediately checked in with the Alfred Shaheen website. Back in 2010 there was a traveling exhibit that documented Shaheen’s contribution to fashion and another larger exhibit in 2012 / 2013.

The Shaheen website is maintained by the family and there are examples of Shaheen’s fashion and more on the website. However, there were no purses.

From there I searched Ebay and Etsy. Ebay yielded no Shaheen purses, but on Etsy there were several. Just one problem, these were not original Shaheen bags, but new purses being made with original and reproduction Shaheen fabrics.

The sellers on Etsy were very straightforward in describing the purses as new creations with either original Shaheen fabrics or some of the reproduction fabrics that are now available. Also, none of the purses on Etsy looked like the one in the calendar.

At this point, I was without success. I could reach out to Sigrid Ivo at the Amsterdam museum, but it seemed pointless to do that without locating another purse.

Now jump forward a couple of years. I would occasionally look for Shaheen purses and in October of 2014 I came across one. A purple flower pattern, I purchased it.

Once I had it in hand I compared it to the one pictured in the Workman calendar. It was similar in construction featuring the same style with an orange glass handle. Even better it had an Alfred Shaheen label inside. Score!

But wait there’s more. Roughly six months later I found the exact purse pictured in the calendar – Shaheen’s koi pattern. This purse also had the same construction, handles and tag.

Vintage, reproduction or something else

So now with two examples of the purse, the question remained. Were these original Alfred Shaheen purses or reproductions?

With so many new purses being manufactured using Shaheen fabrics, I wasn’t confident that these weren’t a later reproduction. It was possible that the labels could be from a manufacturing period. Some of his fabric patterns are being re-issued under a later licensing agreement one that dated after Sheehan’s production period.

I took photographs of the purse and the label and emailed the Shaheen website. They confirmed that the purses were vintage originals and that the labels date them from the 1960s.

These are not common purse. And while not particularly expensive in how they were made (fabric and a glass handle), they represent a unique style of fashion and a designer who changed how the world saw Hawaii and it’s clothing.

If you come across an Alfred Shaheen bag, I suggest you buy it and remember when surf and sand ruled the runway.

Resources

• Alfred Shaheen, http://www.alfredshaheen.com/
• TBT: The Secret History of Hawaiian Prints, Yahoo News.
• Alfred Shaheen: Pioneer of the Hawaiian Shirt, Time Magazine
• Alfred Shaheen, garment industry pioneer, dies at 86, LA Times
• HI Fashion: The Legacy of Alfred Shaheen, Bishop Museum

 

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