Kirk Hubbard grew up with brands like Lightning Bolt and Quiksilver, and if you’d asked him about Reyn Spooner when he was a teenager, he would have said, "That’s my dad’s shirt."

So when he returned home from college and started working downtown, you might as well have dropped him in a foreign country. He didn’t get the memo on upwardly mobile dressing for the Hawaii businessman, and at first thought any aloha shirt would work, not realizing conservative, understated designs were the standard.

"I was on a limited budget and didn’t think there was any difference. I didn’t understand this shirt culture, but after two weeks of working, I started looking around and noticing, hey, the partner in charge is wearing a Reyn Spooner shirt, and the CEO is wearing a Reyn Spooner shirt."

He saw the light and followed suit. Now, I’m not suggesting any hocus-pocus or direct cause-and-effect in donning a Reyn Spooner shirt and landing in the executive suite, but today, Hubbard is the CEO of Reyn Spooner and fine-tuning the brand’s image so that it can remain compatible with his father’s generation while drawing in those of his own generation and younger.

Just as Hubbard once thought of Reyn Spooner as his father’s shirt, he said, "We were seeing a new generation of customers, people who came in saying they were looking for a shirt for their dad for Christmas or Father’s Day."

He realized that if customers weren’t shopping for themselves, in a couple of generations Reyn Spooner would be the shirt of grandfathers, then possibly no one.

Interestingly enough, moving forward has meant revisiting the company’s roots.

The company, one of the original tenants at Ala Moana Center in 1959, unveiled its new retail format to local audiences last week with a move to the Macy’s wing, next to the Apple store. A day before the new store opened, shoppers young and old, visitors and kama­aina, were already tugging at the doors, trying to get into the store with its inviting, open floor plan and easy-to-see mannequin, tabletop and shelf displays which do away with the typical clutter of racks. The design was tested at the Sheraton Waikiki two years ago before revamping the flagship store.

"It was fun to have local customers call, saying they stumbled across the store at the Sheraton and wondered, ‘Whoa, what was that?’"

The new store now blends both classic and contemporary lines, with photographs of the old Reyn’s store and founder Reyn McCullough connecting past and present. It speaks well for the brand that the photos of men dressed in Reyn Spooner designs dating back 40 years look remarkably contemporary, and that’s how McCullough wanted it. He was a fan of classic men’s style and opened a haberdashery on Catalina Island in 1949 before moving to Hawaii and setting up a custom swimwear shop in Waikiki in 1956.

In 1959 he opened Reyn’s in the fledgling Ala Moana Center, promoting classic Ivy League style that eventually led to the store’s nickname as the "Brooks Brothers of the Pacific." He didn’t want to compete with the many other stores vying for the aloha shirt market, so for two years he banned aloha shirts from his store. Then he saw an aloha shirt made for Pat Dorian, a bartender with shirt-making aspirations, sewn inside out by mistake. McCullough loved the muted effect of the print in reverse, and teamed with Ruth Spooner of Spooner’s of Waikiki to create a preppie-style pullover shirt with a button-down collar, a first for the islands.

McCullough then set out to create his own island-style Oxford cloth, and Spooner Kloth materialized in 1964, comprising combed cotton with the wrinkle-free and durable properties of spun polyester. Further branding came in the form of the "Lahaina Sailor" print, inspired by sailors’ bandannas and incorporating four images: the state flag, bird (nene), tree (kukui) and flower (hibiscus) — Reyn Spooner’s equivalent of the Burberry check. The design is now incorporated in the ceiling of the new store.

Reyn’s got a big break in 1966 when the Hawaii Fashion Guild, of which McCullough was a member, helped start Aloha Friday. The move made aloha wear acceptable in the workplace for one day a week at a time when Hawaii’s working man’s uniform was still a crisp shirt, jacket and tie.

McCullough had set a goal of dressing men who would someday take over the boardroom, and succeeded — perhaps a little too well for a newer, independent generation. It didn’t help that by the super-size 1980s, Reyn’s shirts had also increased in volume, matching the boxy shape and straight hem of traditional aloha shirts.

For the body- and street-conscious consumer, it just wasn’t sexy.

Reyn’s kept that easy-to-wear, full fit for those who prefer roomy comfort in the Classic Collection, while creating a Modern Collection that’s actually retro in its return to the fitted, tapered, rounded-hem look of the 1960s and ’70s and the original "Hawaii Five-0."

The new spirit has paid off through collaborations with other prestigious contemporary brands such as Urban Outfitters, Stussy, Opening Ceremony and, come December, Leather Soul, for whom Reyn Spooner represents quality and the essence of manly men’s style.

Hubbard, who joined the company in 1988, said he feels fortunate the company has withstood the test of time, becoming one of only a handful of Ala Moana Center’s original tenants that remain. He said that moving in a new direction has its risks but beats the alternative.

"When I think of all the companies that are gone, it just shows that you may have a good product, but if you sit there and do nothing, you will go extinct."

To tuck or not to tuck, that is the question

Every now and then I’ll hear the style question regarding aloha shirts: tuck or no tuck?

Reyn Spooner CEO Kirk Hubbard said, “I don’t see it tucked anywhere else in the world.”

Aloha shirts were designed for leisure, and the idea of bunching all that fabric in your pants isn’t pretty.

But Reyn Spooner’s original shirts differed from aloha shirts in their slim, preppie style, made with local businessmen in mind, and the tucking started downtown, not as a fashion statement, but as a demarcation between man at work and man at play.

“Tucking in the shirt was a way of saying, ‘I’m working,’ or of dressing for more formal occasions,“ said Hubbard.

With today’s casual lifestyle and slim fit of the Reyn Spooner Modern Collection, there’s no need for nonbankers to ever tuck again.