LOS ANGELES » Gretchen Clarke, who with her husband, Waltah, built what was once the nation’s largest retailer of aloha wear, has died. She was 78.

Clarke died Jan. 22 of kidney failure at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, in the Palm Springs area, her son Cameron said.

Waltah Clarke’s Hawaiian Shops started in the 1950s and grew to more than 30 stores on the mainland and in Hawaii. His first store opened in Palm Springs in 1952 before the Clarkes met, but over the years Gretchen designed most of the company’s clothes and prints and "ran the business," Cameron Clarke said.

"They were pretty innovative in how they captured the Hawaii feeling and spirit and brought it back to the mainland," said Dale Hope, author of "The Aloha Shirt: Spirit of the Islands."

Thanks to the Clarkes, people on the mainland "were able to outfit themselves with pretty authentic Hawaiian goods" that also were "kitschy and corny and fun," Hope said. "They sold the Hawaiian dream."

Gretchen Mary Klaus was born Oct. 24, 1932, in Chicago and graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in home economics. Her parents took her to Hawaii in 1953 as a graduation present, and she met her future husband during hula lessons at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.

Waltah Clarke was born in Los Angeles but moved to Hawaii in 1938 and "he knew everybody," Cameron Clarke said. Gretchen was engaged to another man when she met Waltah, Cameron Clarke said, but "she mailed her engagement ring back to the other gentleman." They were married in 1954.

The business "took off like gangbusters," Gretchen Clarke recalled in 2002.

She became company president in the early 1990s after her husband retired. Waltah, who changed the spelling of his name from Walter because that was how it was pronounced by locals in Hawaii, died in 2002. Their last store was sold in 2001.

In addition to her son Cameron, Clarke is survived by daughters Heather Salsbury, Gretchen Clarke Plemmons and Cissy Clarke Milauskas; sons Walter Jr. of Honolulu and Rolf; and six grandchildren.