When I was in high school, my best friend and I had a ‘no Industrie’ policy. This meant that we couldn’t look at, flirt with, kiss or date boys who wore Industrie brand t-shirts. Even from my earliest teens, not only was I well equipped to crush the spirit of awkward, pimple ridden, self conscious young men everywhere, I was also painfully aware of the ailing, nay, repugnant fashion t-shirt industry in Australia.

As I got older the situation didn’t get better. The proliferation of football culture and the birth of the fluro, your disco will eat you, glow stick munching, rave kid meant that I was thrown into an Industrie redux, courtesy of an abyss of poorly printed, epilepsy inducing tees by the likes of Autonomy and Lenny to name but a few. The case for women’s t-shirts wasn’t much better, unless your interests included liberally applied sequin montages or cute French sayings about love, a la Sass & Bide.  And let’s not even mention the Dangerfield come General Pants paroxysm of band t-shirts.

So, having forsaken t-shirting forever, aside from the odd, unprinted, block colour ‘basics’ from American Apparel, you can imagine my complete shock (and quiet indignation- how dare you prove me wrong!), when I came across Sydney label Das Monk and their new range, ‘Midnight in the Mojave.’ Sexy, inspired and witty were a few words that first sprung to mind, as I ogled a collection of unisex t-shirts that somehow managed to outmaneuver that negative stigma that often attaches itself to printed tees.

I assumed there had to be some kind of catch. Maybe this was a joke, some elaborate hoax designed to raise my hopes before crushing then beneath a ton of boring, clichéd printed t-shirts. Upon receiving one Das Monk’s t-shirts in the mail, I realised that there were no such shenanigans. Tom Foolery was the furthest thing from my mind as I slipped into the slouchy fitting, non-boxy, softly draping t-shirt that screamed of all the most obviously desirable characteristics that a t-shirt should have, with none of the pretension that leads other t-shirt labels to blatantly ignore these simple design requirements.

Wanting to know even more about this mysterious label and its lusty wares, I implored designer Marc Hendrick to reveal the forces that propelled this collection from his dreams to my thankful torso. Hendrick not only designed several of the prints himself, but also collaborated with other talented artists, including UK based Tim Laing, US based Zach Johnsen and Keenan Marshall Keller. “The range was inspired by a bit of a surreal trip through middle America. David Lynch films, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, U-Turn, Animal Collective... All contributed to the imagery of the collection. It’s not necessarily a drug related thing (even though we do have an Acid Ice Cream t-shirt!)... But more of an absurd/psychedelic view of the mundane life of small town USA.”