Nobody remembers the bloke in the plain polo
One shirt, printed front and back — the open tropical shirt, the torso underneath, all of it. $49, two colourways, and the only thing anyone brings up on Monday.
Free shipping Australia-wide · 30-day returns · Ships from our supplier, 2–3 weeks
The only decision that matters is size
Everything else on a novelty shirt is the picture, and you have already seen the picture. Size is the one thing that decides whether the joke lands or whether you spend the night holding your arms slightly away from your body.
This shirt is cut to an Asian size chart, not an Australian one. The letters mean something different. Order the size you normally wear and it will arrive looking like it was made for your nephew.
Order 2XL — 118cm chest
Order 3XL — 124cm chest
Order 4XL — 130cm chest
Read the chest measurement, ignore the letter
Take a shirt you already like, lay it flat, measure across the chest and double it. Find that number in the chest column below and order that row, whatever letter is sitting next to it. Everything is in centimetres, flat, with 1–3cm of variance between garments — that is the manufacturing tolerance, not a rounding error we invented.
Between two rows, take the bigger one. This is a shirt you wear open over a tee at a barbecue, not a tailored fit.
| Size | Chest | Length | Shoulder | Sleeve | Roughly the Australian… |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S | 96cm | 69cm | 44cm | 20cm | Boy’s 14 |
| M | 100cm | 71cm | 46cm | 20cm | XXS |
| L | 106cm | 73.5cm | 48cm | 21cm | XS |
| XL | 112cm | 75cm | 50cm | 21.5cm | Small |
| 2XL | 118cm | 77cm | 52cm | 22cm | Medium |
| 3XL | 124cm | 79cm | 54cm | 23.5cm | Large |
| 4XL | 130cm | 81cm | 56cm | 24cm | XL |
The print goes through the weave, not on top of it
A cheap novelty shirt is a picture heat-pressed onto a blank, and you can find the edge of it with a fingernail. That patch cracks in the second wash and peels off in the third, usually in the middle of the chest, which on this design is a problem.
This one is dye-sublimated: the ink goes into the polyester itself, so there is no raised panel, no seam around the torso, and nothing to lift. Colour runs right to the hem and continues around the back, which is why the back view is a full tropical print rather than a blank.
The open shirt, the tee and the torso are all part of the same print. There is nothing to unbutton.
Printed edge to edge, both sides, with no blank panel where the joke stops.
Lightweight, holds colour, dries fast. Not cotton, and we are not going to call it cotton.
What you are actually buying
This is a joke shirt and it works best when everyone knows exactly what it is. Here is the whole thing, before you spend anything.
What we will tell you straight
- It is a print, and up close it reads as one
Across a room, in a photo, at dusk, on a boat — it does the job and does it well. At arm’s length your mate will work out it is a shirt. That is the whole joke, and it lands harder when nobody pretends otherwise.
- Polyester is not linen
It does not breathe the way cotton does, and on a 38-degree day in the sun you will know you are wearing it. That is the trade for a print this sharp, and there is no version of this shirt in cotton that still looks like this.
- Some rooms will not take it
Bucks night, Cup day, a footy trip, Christmas in July, Bali, your own birthday — yes. Your cousin’s ceremony, a funeral, the office on a normal Tuesday — read the room. We would rather say this than sell you a shirt you wear once and regret.
- The sizing is not Australian
Two letters up from what you normally wear. It is the single thing people get wrong and the single reason a shirt comes back, so we have put a chest measurement next to every size rather than hoping you guess.
What this shirt will not do
- It will not give you abs
Worth stating once. The torso in the photograph is printed on the shirt, arrived that way, and is the same on all seven sizes.
- It will not turn up tomorrow
These are made and posted by our supplier overseas — 2 to 3 weeks to most Australian addresses. If you need it for a date, order three weeks out. We are not going to promise you Friday and then email you an apology on Thursday.
- It will not survive an iron
Direct heat on a sublimation print is how the print stops being a print. Cold wash, hang it up, and it never needs one anyway — polyester does not hold a crease long enough to matter.
- We do not sell you the beer
Or the boardshorts, or the thongs, or the esky. You already have those, and the ones you have are cheaper than anything we could post you.
How long it actually takes to arrive
To send it back unworn if the size is wrong
Cold wash, inside out, off the line
There is no consumable, no re-print kit and no subscription — we looked and would rather tell you that than invent one. Wash it the way the label says and the print outlasts your interest in the joke, which is the honest measure of a novelty shirt.
30°C max
the print
in shade
Two ways to buy it
Same shirt, same print quality. The difference is whether you have an answer ready the second time somebody says “wear the shirt”. There is no bundle discount and we are not going to invent one — two shirts cost what two shirts cost.
Both colourways
Island Cream and Sunset Black, one order, one lot of postage. Pick a size for each — they do not have to match.
- Two shirts, both prints
- Sizes chosen separately
- Free shipping Australia-wide
- 30-day returns, unworn
One shirt
Pick a colourway and go. Perfectly reasonable — most people get through one summer on a single shirt and a good story.
- One shirt, your choice of print
- Second one $49 whenever
- Free shipping Australia-wide
- 30-day returns, unworn
Two colourways, one joke
The cream is the one we would put on you — it is the shirt people picture when you say Hawaiian shirt, and the torso reads more clearly against the lighter print. The black exists because some people do not want to be seen from space.
Island Cream
- Cream ground, orchid and palm print
- Sizes S–4XL
- Free shipping Australia-wide
Sunset Black
- Black ground, red hibiscus print
- Sizes S–4XL
- Free shipping Australia-wide
Both colourways
- One of each, $49 a shirt
- Sizes chosen separately
- Free shipping Australia-wide
Matching shorts, hats, the singlet version
We do not sell these and we are not going to start. A printed torso is funny once per outfit; twice is a costume, and a costume is a different purchase with a different budget.
Custom faces, club logos, bulk orders
Not yet. If you want twelve of them for a bucks weekend, email us before you order — stock moves in batches and we would rather check than let you find out three weeks later.
The ones that decide it
Is it one shirt, or a shirt and a tee?
What size do I order?
Does it actually look real?
Is it see-through?
How do I wash it?
How long does delivery take?
Can I return it?
Where is it made?
Somebody you know has a party in three weeks
That is exactly how long this takes to arrive. Order it now and you are the story; order it the week before and you are the bloke in the plain polo again.