Despite living next door to Korea (in Japan) for the last 10 years I have never visited the country and I know very little about it. I was going to travel there at the beginning of last year but preferring warm weather, we went to Kuala Lumpur for a short vacation instead. I do hope to visit there some day though.

KOTA SHOP, according to their very brief About section, is a lifestyle brand whose design is inspired by Korean Pop Culture. They sent two tees for review. They didn’t provide much information and there is not a whole lot of info on their website but I am guessing most of their customers are fans of Korean culture and will probably get their designs anyway. Not that you have to be a fan of Korean culture to appreciate KOTA SHOP’s tees. But more on that later.

The KOTA SHOP looks very professional. It is the type of design  I like. Very clean, symmetrical and with lots of white space. The only criticisms I have are the use of mockups instead of genuine product shots and the fact that the home page slider isn’t clickable.

While KOTA SHOP is inspired by Korean Pop Culture, they print on American Apparel and ship from the US.

The title of the shirt is 3 bears and I imagine that’s what the Korean writing at the bottom says. I guess I’d better check before letting my wife out in it.

It’s a cute shirt. I like the simple design although it may be a little childish for my wife’s taste. I’m not too sure what it’s about but there was something on the KOTA SHOP blog that makes me think it’s a popular nursery rhyme in Korea. I’m not too sure what to make of this video though. I like it but I’m not really sure what’s going on.

The two tees had branding on the sleeve that is quite tastefully done. The tags were printed and one of the tees came with a hangtag featuring a character (the V-Bot Kick) from another shirt on one side, and the url on the other. It looks good. I think this kind of thing adds to a shirt.

The V-Bot Punch as a character that looks like a cute version of  a Transformer in a karate punch pose. The print is perfect and the colors are vibrant, even the white. They even managed to make the white vibrant while still keeping the print soft. That used to be no easy task but I guess print technology is improving too.

I could talk about how nice the tees fit and how soft the material is but most of you probably own quite a few American Apparel tees already.

As you can see from the Banner above, KOTA SHOP is having a big sale at the moment where you can get 20% off you entire order and if you are living in the US you can avail of free shipping!

They don’t have a huge selection of tees at the moment but hopefully there is a demand for the particular niche they are targeting and they will expand their collection.

Check them out!

Link: KOTA SHOP