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Elsie Das

Elsie Das (born Elsie Jensen; 1903 in Portland, Oregon) was an American artist, textile designer, painter, and apparel designer. Das is most widely known for her contribution to the evolution of the Aloha shirt. Her 1930s textile designs of botanical prints contributed to the creation of an iconic Hawaiian look, and she was considered a pioneer of island designs for Hawaiian apparel and the “Aloha print.” In 1962, Das died in Valhalla, New York.

Early life and education

Das was born in 1903 in Portland, Oregon. As a child, Das designed dresses for her dolls and spent her time drawing. Her mother intended for all of the Jensen children—two sons and two daughters, including Elsie—to become musicians. Das took lessons for piano and voice until one of her high school art teachers talked to her piano teacher, who convinced Das’s mother to let her attend art school. After high school, she attended Portland Art School, and on her twenty-first birthday she moved to San Francisco and began to study art at UC Berkeley. However, Das did not find herself engaged in her design class. She only attended class to pick up and drop off her assignments; unbeknownst to her, the instructor used Das’s art as examples of exemplary work.

Das traveled to the Hawaiian Islands in 1928 to visit her sister, Ellen Jensen. Jensen, a music teacher, had married G.J. Watumull on the island of O’ahu in 1922. Das met a man named Upendra Kumar Das on that trip, and married him. Their daughter, Patricia Naida, was born in 1930. Upendra Kumar Das was a biochemist who worked as the head of research at the Hawaiian Sugar Planter’s Association (HSPA). He pursued a Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota in 1935, and Elsie Das accompanied him during this time, studying art at the university as well as at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Upendra Kumar Das died in an explosion at his workplace in 1937.

Artistic career

After Das moved to Hawaii, Ellen Jensen’s husband, G.J. Watumull, hired Das to design the Watumull’s East India Store windows. In 1936, the Watumull family commissioned Das to design a collection of relief prints. Das printed these onto fabric, and later the resulting designs were reproduced and printed on raw silk in Japan. These types of textile designs became popular and were seen on home furnishings and decor as well as on clothing. Das’s patterns, along with the designs of Nobuji Yoshida, were recognized as some of the earliest island prints. Their work created a craze for Hawaiian prints that would be deemed Aloha prints, and these designs were iconized on Hawaiian casualwear such as mu‘umu‘us and Aloha shirts. Das designed textiles intermittently for Watumull’s from that point on until 1947. Das learned wood engraving and a bicolored block printing technique from friend and fellow artist Isami Doi. In 1942, she began using a hand-blocking technique for her textiles. Das also worked as a camouflage artist for the U.S. Engineers of Honolulu during World War II.

In 1951, on a trip around the world, Das decided to apply her artistry to what she called “animate forms”; said Das about her fashion designs, “I was aware that we see each other in motion. If a dress or coat is awkward when the wearer is walking down a theater aisle, for instance, the line is not a good one.” Das was inspired to open her own shop by exploring Italian specialty shops, and after studying pattern making in New York, she returned to Hawaii. In 1953, Elsie Das opened her own clothing store on Kalakaua Ave. in Honolulu. Das is the “designer who introduced costume to Hawaii,” and she designed couture that was revered by customers. The women who patronized Das considered her original couture creations to be symbols of status. Das also insisted on using fabrics of the highest quality—for example, she imported Thai silk and Egyptian cotton satin for her designs. She never used synthetic fibers in her clothing, nor did she use any of her customers’ fabrics.

Though Das considered herself a “week-end painter,” she painted frequently and was acknowledged for her painting by artists such as Isami Doi. According to Doi, Das had three “distinct periods in her paintings.” In her pre-WWII years, she loved to paint the Hawaiian people, as well as her daughter in “impressionistic portraits.”12 In her “New York” period, while she studied fashion design, Das tended to paint children. Between this period and her last, Das focused on fashion for about seven years and spent less time on her painting. Her last period of painting is described by Doi as “semi-abstract and … esoteric.”13 Doi believed that Das’s time in a Zen monastery in Japan and her trips to the Honolulu Zen Buddhist Association for meditation retreats caused her shift into more abstract territory.14 Though she actively took part in these Buddhist meditation retreats, Das also attended church at Kawaiahao Church. Das’s multifaceted talents also extended to ceramics, jewelry design, and interior decoration.