Vintage T-shirts

Vintage T-shirts by Patrick & Marc Guetta Taschen HK$283

First let me get this off my chest: I am a T-shirt addict. I just discovered I own 71 T-shirts, which I imagine puts me fairly high up on the male tee ownership scale.

It's been a long-term obsession. When I was a teenager, the best presents I received were T-shirts from my more hip uncles. The shirts usually bore the names of bands I wasn't really aware of then, but had designs infinitely cooler than what my mother was buying me.

And since becoming an adult, I have pored over T-shirts on sale everywhere from the back streets of Shinjuku and Mong Kok to the murkiest corners of the internet in search of the ultimate tee: a random combination of eye-catching design, feel-good fabric and - perhaps most elusive of all - wearability.

I am obviously not alone in my obsession. Otherwise, Vintage T-Shirts - a gorgeously displayed selection of more than 650 classic tee graphics which may be skewed towards Americana but still manage to speak a global language - would never have seen the light of day.

A T-shirt is a previously blank canvas that has been hijacked to advertise everything from the wearer's musical tastes to their politics, sense of humour, favourite sports team and even preference for hot dogs. But over the years the humble tee has become much greater than the sum of its parts.