It's now a bit over a month since an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 wrought havoc on Haiti, leaving over 200,000 of its citizens dead and many more homeless. The tragedy is one of the worst in recent memory, rivalling the Asian tsunami for bleak ferocity and soul-crushing statistics.

With the passage of time and the remorseless appetite of the news cycle, the world's attention has to some extent moved on, but one local company has refused to let the opportunity to extend a hand go by.

Closet.co.nz is a t-shirt company run by Dave Gibson, the erstwhile singer of Elemeno P. It usually sells a bunch of t-shirts by bands both fantastic and horrible, but since the tragedy in Haiti they've produced a series of tees which look as great as the cause they support.

Designed by the likes Sarah Larnach (creator of Ladyhawke's award-winning artwork), The Wilderness Collective's Simon Oosterdijk and Kelvin Soh and Consortium's Simon Chesterman each is a stark, immaculately assembled tribute to the resilience of the Haitian People in the face of this tragedy.

“We just had to act," says Gibson. "In the face of such hopelessness you’ve got to at least try. I got on the phone and before I knew it we had Gildan giving us a huge discounts on tees for the project, with Embroidery Works & Courier Post also being incredibly generous and donating the cost of postage for the first 1000 t-shirts. It was really encouraging to have people get behind the idea so quickly.”

They're just $20 each, and all proceeds go to Oxfam's Haitian relief fund. The first run of 1000 is nearly sold out, but more will arrive any day now. Do the right thing and get yourself one.


Simon Chesterman


Kelvin Soh


Sarah Larnach


Simon Oosterdijk