The founders of Penang Street Co. grew up on the island, moved to KL for work, and started making clothes to feel less far away. That's the entire brief. Every tee is a postcard that moves.
Wei, Faiz, and Danny met in primary school in George Town. They ended up in KL through different routes — architecture school, a banking grad programme, a startup that didn't work out. They started printing tees on weekends in 2018, selling them to friends at RM 50 a piece from a Myvi in a Bangsar car park.
The designs reference specific streets, hawker stalls, and murals. The Lebuh Armenian Long Sleeve is named after the street that became globally famous for its painted murals. The Penang Graphic Tee references the clan jetties of Chew Jetty. These are not generic heritage graphics. They are arguments for a specific place, made by people who are no longer there.
"Penang is complicated," Wei says. "It's beautiful and it's being gentrified and the people who made it beautiful are being priced out. We can't fix that. We can make sure people don't forget what it felt like before."
The Penang Graphic Tee and Lebuh Armenian Long Sleeve are available now.
