Nothing Boring About These Shirts On Display At The Wa History Museum Through September

David Bader is the perfect person to explain the allure of aloha shirts. Bader, a Tacoma-based aloha shirt collector, sported his first one before he could form complete sentences; his mom bought him a red shirt patterned with blossoming orchids when he was 2 years old. Since then, Bader, now 63, has been enthralled with the apparel. He had the opportunity to share both a personal and a cultural aloha-shirt history with The News Tribune in July. On a Friday morning, half an hour before the Washington State History Museum opened, Bader met with the newspaper and three Washington Historical Society employees at “Art of the Aloha Shirt”, a traveling exhibit that lives in Tacoma this summer. As he led the small party around some of his favorites among the 19 shirts on display, he recalled what first attracted him to the attire. Read more at The News Tribune