Cartoon Animal Doodle Shirt 'Rakugaki'

Cartoon dogs and cats doodled all over cream, with a brown collar and a pocket

Somebody drew a lot of dogs on this shirt. Cartoon dogs, cats, a few flowers and stars, all in a single brown line on cream, doodled across the whole shirt in the style of a notebook margin, with a dark brown collar and a chest pocket in the same brown carrying a small red embroidered patch. It comes in cream, as in the photograph, and in khaki.

It is the shirt in the collection that makes people smile, and the contrast collar is what keeps it a shirt rather than a pyjama.

The name, Rakugaki, is a doodle, the scribble in the margin, and the shirt is one.

The cut is a camp shirt: an open collar that lies flat, here in a contrast brown, a straight hem to wear untucked, short sleeves cut wide, and a body cut boxy through the chest so it hangs rather than clings. It is the shape of the Japanese summer shirt since the fifties, and it has not needed changing. The cloth is a polyester-cotton blend with a smooth, dry hand, chosen because an all-over print needs a flat ground to stay sharp and a summer shirt needs to wash cold, dry fast and come out of the machine without an iron. It does.

Wear it open over a white tee or buttoned to the second button with white trousers, as in the photograph, and plain shoes. Nothing else with a pattern; the shirt has used the day's allowance. Cream and brown go with white, with denim, and with a dog.

From across a street it is a pale shirt with a brown collar. From close the dogs separate into breeds, the cats into moods, the flowers into petals, and the patch on the pocket shows its stitches. It is the shirt for someone who has a dog, or a child, or both.

The doodles are placed at random, so no two shirts have the same dog in the same place, and the pocket is real and deep enough for a pen, which is what a doodle shirt should have. The khaki version turns the line darker and the collar the same brown.

It washes cold, inside out, and dries on a hanger in an hour; the print does not fade, and there is nothing to iron unless you want the collar sharp, in which case a cool iron on the back of it takes a minute.

Sizes run from M to XL. It is cut to Asian sizing and runs small, so take one size up from your usual. Between two sizes, take the larger.