Uniqlo will be releasing a new collection under the name, “Pokémon”. Though it’s not the first time that Uniqlo has released Pokémon-themed designs, these ones are special. After all, this was the theme for Uniqlo’s 2019 Global T-Shirt Design Competition – an annual T-Shirt design contest, open worldwide for fans to submit their shirt designs.

How are the designs decided?

Out of 18,000 designs submitted in total this year, 24 were selected to be turned into real shirts. This decision was made by Uniqlo’s own panel of judges. The panel of judges change with each year’s take on the contest, depending on the year’s theme.

This time round, the judges were the President of the Pokémon Company, the Managing Director of GAME FREAK Inc. (i.e the company behind all the Pokémon games) and the Creative Director of Uniqlo.

What do the designs look like?

As mentioned earlier, 24 designs are going to be turned into actual shirts. To start off, here are the top 3 designs:

  • First place’s design, featuring Gyarados and Margikarps.
  • Second place’s design, featuring Unknown.
  • Third place’s design, featuring Alolan Eggxecutor and Pikachu.

Some of the shirts have designs on their backs as well! One example is the second place winner’s design that features Unknown, in a clever way that resembles a vision test:

Just so you know: the Unknowns spell out “H-O-C-X”. We think that these Unknowns were just chosen because of their circular shapes, rather than to actually spell out anything. / Photo Credit: Uniqlo

You can scroll through the other available shirt designs here. Though all the winning designs look great, here’s our personal favourite:

Ghost-types! Love the number of Pokémon featured in this design. / Photo Credit: Uniqlo

Cool new designs aside, here’s another cool thing to look forward to – customisable trainer outfits in the upcoming Pokémon Sword and Shield! After all, it’s been confirmed that the grand-prize winning design of Uniqlo’s competition will be making an appearance in-game. Check it out:

Whether in-game or in real life, we just can’t wait for these designs to drop! These shirts are set to launch on June 24th, 2019, and will be available both online and in physical Uniqlo stores. As listed on Uniqlo’s US site, they will be sold at US$14.90 (possibly $19.90 in Singapore) per shirt.

A sleepless cryptid with a sweet tooth, who spends most of her free time on the internet. Sheryl loves binge-watching shows on Netflix, Persona 5's Joker, arcades, and all her emotional support K-Pop boys.