If you’ve never heard of The Covert Collective (because they’re covert, ahem), it’s a clothing line masterminded by duo Hannah Bhatt and Samuel Chew, a lawyer graduate and engineer by trade respectively that are driven by a collective passion for body art and street-wear. Their print designs are all drawn by hand and screen printed manually on cotton t-shirts to ensure that they are of the highest quality. Covert’s tee designs are all the brainchildren of Hannah, the lady-half of the duo.
This time around, her design is present in The Covert Collective’s latest tee, named ‘Real Men Don’t Buy Girls’, which bears a deformed illustration of a man with serpentine features on the eyes and face halfway through consuming a lady. It’s a powerful message against the prevalent issue of human trafficking in Malaysia, and Covert intends to highlight this disturbing reality in a powerful way.
The tee, the first of the Covert Gives series, is made in collaboration with local NGO Tenaganita with the aim of supporting various local charities and NGOs through specially designed t-shirts while raising awareness on this issue. The t-shirts will be priced at RM59 each while 100% of the profits will be donated to Tenaganita. The campaign is also supported by Light Show Photography as well as local artists Bil Musa and +2db.
The campaign and tee name is highly reminiscent of The Demi and Ashton Foundation’s (DNA) interactive video campaign launched way back in June 2011 that also went by the same name, which aimed to educate the public about child sex slavery in the United States.
While human trafficking may be a festering evil that tends to hide from the public eye, the issue is as real as it gets. Buy the shirt. The art is urban-street sexy and it’s a live broadcast that you are aware of, and against, treating anybody like cattle to be sold as you walk the streets.
The ‘Real Men Don’t Buy Girls’ tee and other products will be available for purchase on their website.
