Ikal.

This men's t-shirt of Ikal takes the portrait as Yago Partal fixed it — the axolotl facing front, pinkish skin and reactive gills — and moves it to a garment you wear early in the morning, before coffee and before work. In the portrait, Ikal appears in a red plaid flannel shirt, inherited, open over a worn denim trucker jacket. The t-shirt is what goes underneath. The layer that holds on its own when the temperature rises and the jacket gets slung over a shoulder.

Ikal comes out of the canal with the hems of his jeans wet and his hands purple from the cold water. It's nine in the morning; he's been out since five past six and has already shed the layers one by one as the sun climbed above the ahuejote trees. What's left is the t-shirt. The sweat from the first stretch. The wooden-handled machete at his belt, the leftover rope coiled in his left hand.

The t-shirt is cotton and is printed to order, one piece at a time, by the graphic-quality printer that prints each Animal Kinhood portrait. That means no stock waiting in a warehouse: Ikal's portrait gets printed when someone orders this size and this cut. The cotton is jersey knit, opaque, breathable, with no finishes that add noise. Wash cold, air dry. It lasts if you care for it, the same way the flannel Ikal inherited from his uncle still has its cuffs intact six years later.

The portrait is printed on the front in direct-to-garment ink. The background of the portrait frames the animal without spilling past its outline, so the t-shirt doesn't look like a poster pasted on: it looks like clothing with a drawing that's settled in. The back is clean. Round neck, straight cut, shoulders follow the natural seam. For sizing and measurements, the size guide is in the corresponding tab on the product page.