From May 18, 2010 through August 8, 2010, the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles will present Hawaii’s Alfred Shaheen: Fabric to Fashion, which is the first major retrospective of Hawaiian textiles and aloha wear manufactured by Alfred Shaheen on the island of Oahu over a 40-year period. Co-curated by Museum curator Deborah Corsini and Hawaiian textile scholar Dr. Linda Arthur, the exhibit features 100+ objects of stunning yardage and garments representing the textile designs Shaheen produced, and key examples of the garments that visually conjure Hawaii's complex cultural history. The exhibit fills all three Museum galleries.

In addition to textiles and garments, the exhibit showcases archival photos and ads that illuminate how the textiles and garments were designed, manufactured and marketed. Alfred Shaheen pioneered a silk-screening method, professionally trained Hawaiians as Shaheen's City of Craftsmen, and mined the visual iconography of Hawaii's multi-ethnic community to create a new design aesthetic. Shaheen wed technological innovation to socially responsible business practices in the service of revitalizing Pacific Island/Asian textile traditions to forge a fusion fashion design aesthetic now recognized worldwide as a visual marker--not only of a transnational Hawaiian culture--but of a West Coast "American" lifestyle that is informal, environmentally aware, and multi-cultural.

Links to installation images of the exhibit are located on the menu to the left.