Hawai’i 5-O? More like Hawai’i Ry-O.
Ryo Ishikawa is the number one trendsetter in the world of golf. He is simply the best in the business at taking the latest trends from the runways and bringing them to the fairways.
Last week, in his home country of Japan, the Bashful Prince broke out two Hawaiian print shirts at the Sega Sammy Cup (one pink and one blue — sorry Getty Images has not released the photos, so just click on the links to see them). I really like the look of these. The print is not one of those over-the-top Hawaiian prints. The single color prints on Ryo’s shirts offer an understated look. In fact, you really can’t tell that they are Hawaiian prints until you are up close.
Hawaiian prints are the trendy print of the summer in menswear. If you don’t believe me, just pick up the July issue of GQ magazine. (It’s the one with Emily Ratajkowski on the cover who is wearing more sand than clothes. Seriously, you can’t miss it.)
“From Elvis to ‘Mad Men,’ Hawaiian prints have always been on the daring edge of style, but this summer they went all, well, volcanic—spreading to tank tops, cargo pants, and briefcases” — GQ magazine
You might as well add golf shirts to that list, too, GQ.
Now, Ryo isn’t the first guy to tee it up in a tropical print. Who could forget some of those gems from Duffy Waldorf back in the day and those hideous Tabasco shirts from Woody Austin over the years? But, I do think that the original Duffster and Woody have led us golfers to repress any knowledge of Hawaiian prints from our psyche.
Embed from Getty ImagesBy the way, didn’t we start seeing more guys on Tour wearing sunglasses about the time Duffy started sporting those Hawaiian shirts? Coincidence? I think so!
Embed from Getty ImagesAnyway, now that Ryo has shown us that you can actually find some stylish tropical prints for the course, I’m sure we’ll see more brands jumping on the bandwagon next spring with varying levels of sartorial success.
To date, the only one I’ve seen is this polo (below) from Ralph Lauren at the PGA Merchandise Show in January. Since I haven’t seen it in the market, I can only imagine that it is part of RL’s Fall 2014 or Spring 2015 Collection.
