Dragon Bone Tee

龍骨 (ryūkotsu): "dragon bone."

Chinese apothecaries long sold dragon bones, fossil bones dug from the fields and ground into powder for medicine. In 1899 Wang Yirong, a scholar at the Qing court in Beijing, noticed old characters scratched into some of them. They turned out to be oracle bones from the Shang dynasty, carved more than 3,000 years ago and traced to Anyang, and they hold the oldest body of Chinese writing known. Japanese still uses the same word, ryūkotsu, for a ship's keel, the long backbone of the hull.

A blue line drawing of a dragon skeleton coils across the white front under the words "Tokyo Bone Culture." Beneath a thin black rule, blue katakana spell ドラゴンボーン (doragon bōn), "dragon bone," the English words written the Japanese way.

The layout has the look of a museum shop, fine blue lines kept clean on plain white. Fossil nerds, tattoo fans and people who read every small label in a display case will get it. Bones, scales and claws: there are more of them in the dragon tees.

• Fabric: 100% combed cotton, 230gsm, pre-shrunk and soft-washed
• Print: direct-to-garment (DTG)
• Color: white
• Fit: unisex, regular; size up for a boxier, oversized look
• Sizes: S to 3XL
• Size reference: 6 ft 2 in wears L; 5 ft 7 in wears M

Measurements for every size are in the size guide.