Flight 919 Vintage Tee

トーキョーデパーチャー (Tōkyō depāchā): "Tokyo departure."

Japanese keeps a whole script for words it borrows. Katakana grew out of pieces of Chinese characters that Buddhist monks jotted beside sutras in the 9th century as reading aids, and today it spells imports from coffee, kōhī, to computer, konpyūtā. A long horizontal stroke stretches the vowel before it, which is how the English "departure" turns into depāchā. Writing Tokyo itself in katakana instead of its two kanji gives the name an outsider's accent, the city as a traveler sees it.

Big white katakana run down the left side of the back: トーキョーデパーチャー (Tōkyō depāchā), "Tokyo departure." Beside them sits a ticket stub with "Flight No. 919" and "Departure time: now" above a small scene of Mount Fuji under a red sun. A boarding-pass patch with a plane and Fuji marks the chest.

It's the send-off gift for someone moving abroad, or the shirt for your own flight out, already soft and broken in like a jacket patch that's been through a few airports. More washed vintage tees hang beside it.

• Fabric: 100% combed cotton, 230gsm, pre-shrunk and soft-washed
• Print: direct-to-garment (DTG)
• Color: washed black
• 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.