Shirts are easy to match with trousers

SPECS

FABRIC:
100% rayon fabric, woven and printed in Japan with traditional fabric printing techniques.
Two color options, Charlie (original colorway), and Delta (night time colorway).

DETAILS:

• Limited edition collaboration with the Sun Surf label.
• Body pattern inspired by classic vintage 1940s-50s Aloha shirts.
• All original MF fabric print, inspired by vintage UFO lore and the 1947 Roswell, NM, flying saucers case.
• Overprint fabric printing method, requiring 18 different color screens to achieve color gradation of original watercolor.
• 1940s50s style open loop collar, aka Arafold-style spread collar.
• Single chest pocket with matching print pattern.
• Brown corozo wood buttons.
• MF x Sun Surf Rock & Roll woven rayon label and AREA 7161 double labeling.
• Packaged is a fancy re-usable Sun Surf cardboard shirting box, featuring original MF artwork inspired by vintage LP covers.
• Made in Japan in limited edition.

SIZING/FIT

The Rock & Roll Shirt Flying Saucers (both Charlie and Delta coloways) come ready-to-wear right out of the box. No need to soak.

CL's Advice: We adopted the time-tested sizing of Sun Surfs Aloha shirts for this garment. I wear a Medium in most mfsc shirting, and opted for a very comfortable Medium in this edition. True to size, not intended to be worn tight, or tucked-in, unless youre very daring and hip.
See sizing chart for approximate measurements, measured straight out of the packaging box.

CARE

We recommend professional dry clean only, in your local eco-friendly facility.
Delicate hand-washing in cold water with mild detergent line dry is also an option.
Do NOT use machine/heat dryer.

STORY

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!
We have the scoop: flying saucers have landed, and it happened right here in California, USA, at a few days ago. As announced on Japanese !

Background:
The of Unidentified Flying Objects has piqued publics interest in the US starting in the
Soon following Americas involvement in the WW2 conflict, US flyers on combat missions described unexplainable fireballs in the sky in both the European and Pacific Theaters. Those unexplained phenomena were coined as at the time, origin of the term somewhat uncertain, maybe related to a popular 1940s comic strip.
In 1947, private pilot s alleged sighting of nine airborne shiny boomerangs helped seal the popular term flying saucers and sparked a flying disc sighting craze with Americans, not-only eager for exciting news after a draining world war, but reassessing their worldviews in the Atomic Age.
Another major event in ufology, well-publicized since, also happened in 1947. Known as the , this was an alleged UFO crash in a New Mexico desert ranch (.) It was said that the crashed spaceship included its Alien pilots crew, who, interestingly, had been skilled-enough to travel through space from a distant planet, possessing the proper advanced technology, avoiding all kinds of meteors and space junk on the way, but failed to put on the breaks at the last minute! Go figure. For some, this was a mere weather balloon (or highly-classified surveillance balloon), for others a Russian secret weapon, an alien spaceship, a communist psychological warfare hoax aimed at destabilizing the USA, , amongst the many interpretations. The event has also been considered as a mysterious military/ cover-up.
Some people even believe to this day that the crashed Roswell UFO spacecraft has been under reverse-engineering in a secret AREA 51 hangar for years, along with the bodies of its large-headed pilots
It is generally accepted that most 1950s-60s UFO sightings in the USA were, in fact, shiny silver high altitude secret U-2 spy plane prototypes on test flights. But what do I know. My hunch is that the UFO pilots were distracted by all the cool music happening on Earth in the 1940s, and just missed their Roswell landing. Maybe they were staring at their cell phones and crashed?

For a serious historical timeline and much much broader background, Annie Jacobsens a well-researched and fascinating book written in 2011 with an overwhelming amount of declassified intel is a great read.

Full visuals/ramblings .

Design inspiration:
We pulled out the old watercolors and brushes for the graphic. The original artwork was inspired by a blend of 1947 Roswell imagery, a twist of in the California High Desert, vintage UFO lore, a bit of imagination and a lot of artistic limitations, all that under the watchful eye of art director , also from another planet. For those interested, plenty making-of photos of the watercoloring process documented in the .
The clumsy doodle was then translated by our friends and vintage Aloha shirt experts at into a painstakingly-produced fabric print, for an authentic Hawaiian shirt feel.

Please note that some R&D/lookbook photos featured on this post show early prototypes (referred to Alpha & Bravo), with a slightly different graphic distribution on the front panels. These A & B protos are not what was produced. To better convey the initially-intended period traditional vintage Hawaiian shirts vibe with an authentic Aloha style graphic balance, final production (referred to as Charlie & Delta) has been adjusted to an off-set left/right front panel pattern.
Simply put, the desert landscape scene is intentionally out-of-synch on the shirts front panels, while it is presented in its uninterrupted glory on the back panel!
Of course, the fabric print of the single chest pocket is in perfect alignment with the body print, aka matching pocket in collectors jargon.
Fabric printing in Japan is done on traditional machines, using intricate printing procedures. As discussed on a recent episode (RnR shirt convo starts at ), a technique known as overprinting (necessitating 18 different screens!) had to be used to replicate the color gradation and shading of the original watercolor painting, instead of the somewhat faster discharge printing method. As Sugar Cane brand director Fukutomi Sensei mildly put it, (kur shimashita = it was not easy.)

For more visuals and heritage Aloha shirts knowledge especially for one whose flower shirt expertise is limited to s 80s red Jungle Bird pattern by Paradise Found check out Sun Surf well-documented reference and faithful vintage replicas of 1930s~1960s models. If youre into the From Here to Eternity look, Sun Surf has the goods!
Our friends at Sun Surf deliver yearly collections under the guidance of , Toyo Enterprises elusive current CEO, an avid and well-respected aloha-shatsu museum-quality collector. I tried to snap a current photo of Sacho San during our recent March 2024 mfsc show but he was gone the second I blinked!

On an industry-related note, even in the slow fashion world that MF has opted to partake in since 2007, show samples are always cut/sewn under challenging pressure in order to meet a specific event (aka trade show) deadline. Things get even more challenging when a specific fabric has to be milled, or when a new original fabric print is a major part of the garment design! Im always late with design directions/graphic submissions, and our friends at Toyo Enterprise will never cease to amaze me at pulling rabbits out of the hat to make things happen.

We started our Mister Freedom x SUN SURF collaboration back in 2015, kicking it off with the first of our shirt, the Action Packed model, recently-released in and . Followed the boppin edition released during Spring 2016, available in all-cotton , and , a tribute to Rock & Rolls early fifties roots. Randomly venturing to the burning Sahara sands, destination the French penal colonies of North Africa and their inked-up inmates, we then released the edition during Spring 2018, in and .
To compliment our SS2019 mfsc collection (story ), we then designed the , released in and .
Epic trips with the fam to and Dorothy and Otis have inspired the Catalina model, in and .

In 2024, we are humbled again to have our latest doodle translated into a fancy 1940s-50s style rayon shirt!

The Mister freedom x Sun Surf Flying Saucers Rock & Roll Shirt is designed in California by Mister Freedom and manufactured in Japan by Sun Surf and Sugar Cane Co, both divisions of Toyo Enterprise.

Thermal regulating phase change materials activate at body temperature.