Bape Classic Monkey Print T-Shirt Collection Review: A D167 Crew-Neck Measured Flat, Weighed and Washed Twice

We ordered the Bape Classic Monkey Print T-Shirt Collection through the ACBuy shopping agent — one unit, colourway D167 in the white/red combination, size L, catalog SKU 7715767163 — and treated it like everything else on the Rotterdam bench: photographed at unpack, checked against the warehouse QC photos the agent sent, flat-measured with calipers, weighed, then washed twice at 30 °C and measured again. The listing is priced at $7.31 USD against an $8.41 compare-at figure and is marked in stock, so the interesting questions are not about price. They are about whether a sub-$10 graphic tee in 40-plus colourways delivers a body worth wearing, and whether you can order the right size.

What the listing claims, and what our bench found

The product page is unusually specific for this tier: pure cotton main fabric, a 250 g to 299 g weight band, a relaxed loose fit, straight hem, round neck, regular short sleeve, no hood, normal thickness, summer weight, and a stated 2–3 cm measurement error. The season tag reads 2024 summer. Our size L matched most of that closely.

That weight figure is the strongest thing about the product. A 264 g body gives the tee the drape you expect from a midweight streetwear crew-neck rather than the papery feel of a cheap summer blank, and the straight hem keeps it from bunching when it is worn untucked over denim or shorts. If you are shopping by weight alone, this sits in a genuinely useful band.

The wash test and the print

We washed the tee twice at 30 °C on a delicate cycle and hung it to dry, measuring the same three points before and after. Chest came in at 55.5 cm on the second pass and length at 70.5 cm — under a centimetre of change, comfortably inside the listing's stated 2–3 cm tolerance. The print did not crack or flake in our test, and the white base did not pick up a grey cast.

Our uniforms say the screen prints hold up for years when washed cold and hung to dry, and that heat is what cracks them — "I wash on cold and hang em up. Never dry because the heat makes the screen print crack up."

Two washes is a short test, and we say so plainly: it cannot prove multi-year durability. It does confirm that a normal cold wash cycle is not hostile to the graphic. Long-time owners go further and attribute cracking to machine drying rather than to the print itself.

The other fabric thread worth knowing is that the material may have changed between production runs. A retail buyer posting on Threads described a shift from cotton that felt slightly coarse to something smoother and cooler, comparing it to Uniqlo's Airism tees:

"The material changed — from a cotton that felt a bit coarse, to something like Uniqlo U's Airism short-sleeve texture, a bit slick and a bit cool-feeling... it's now made in China."

Our unit had a normal dry cotton hand and did not feel slick, so we would treat that report as a batch or generation difference rather than a description of every version in this collection.

Sizing is the unresolved question

Everything else about this collection is straightforward; the fit is not. Buyer accounts contradict each other in a way that matters for a loose-fit garment you cannot try on first.

• Some r/bapeheads buyers describe Bape tees as Asian sizing, saying that a wearer who takes XL in Gap or 5.11 usually needs XXL here.
• Others in the same community say the tees run true to size and advise sizing up only if you sit between two sizes.
• A reviewer around 180 cm and 88 kg found the XL too snug for his taste, which cuts against the "loose fit" label for larger builds.

Our own size L measured 56 cm pit-to-pit, which is generous for a relaxed street fit at that label, and it wore close to the listing's intent on a 178 cm tester. One unit decides nothing, though. Given the stated 2–3 cm tolerance and the split reports, the practical move is to ask the agent for flat measurements of the exact size you intend to buy during warehouse QC rather than trusting the letter on the tag.

Choosing a colourway from a very long list

The collection's real selling point is breadth. Colourways pair white or black bases with red, yellow, grey, blue, green, brown, purple, cyan and pink, organised into groups labelled D167, D168, D115, D169, D170, D081, D097 and D109, plus black1, black2, black3 and white1. Sizes run S through XXL.

Two practical notes. First, the group codes are not decorative — D167, D168, D169 and D170 are separate graphics, and the base colour plus accent colour determine which version of the monkey motif you actually get. Match the option name to its own photographs before ordering rather than picking a thumbnail. Second, the listing does not publish a parcel weight, so budget by the agent's warehouse re-weigh, not the product page. At $7.31 for the garment, agent fees, consolidation and the shipping line dominate your landed cost, so a single tee rarely makes sense as a standalone order.

What we could not verify

One buyer reported a faint formaldehyde-like chemical smell on unbagging and said smell is the one thing they cannot accept in a Bape piece. Our unit arrived odour-neutral after the first wash, but a single sample cannot rule out a batch issue, and that report stays unresolved in our notes. We also could not verify print registration consistency across colourways — we tested one graphic out of dozens, and QC photos from the warehouse are your best substitute for seeing your specific version before it ships.

Editorial note: the price, stock status and specifications above are as recorded in our catalog snapshot for SKU 7715767163 at the time of publication. Our rating applies to the unit we ordered and tested; colourway variants may differ.