Supposedly, in 1820 a group of Bostonian Christian missionaries travelled to Hawaii to preach the Word to the natives.
Upon arrival, they were shocked to discover that the natives were all half naked, especially the women who wore no tops at all.
They decided to fix this.
The wrote back home to their congregations explaining the ‘problem’, and could they send them some clothing.
Times were tough back then and their home congregants had little left to share after financing their missionary trip.
But one cloth seller had a bunch of bolts of cloth that had wild flowery patterns he could not sell to staid Bostonian women.
So he boxed them all up and sent them to Hawaii.
Turned out the natives loved the loud colorful flower patterns and would make themselves clothing that has been a symbol of Hawaiian fashion to this day...............
Or so I have read.....................
I like that story. To bad Michener didn’t include that in his book.
But it makes sense as many missionaries went there from New England.