Kong T-shirts come with Hollywood price-tag

Thomas Kretschmann (left) and Andy Serkis show off the designer T-shirts. Pictures / Mark Mitchell

Wondering about those rhinestone-studded King Kong T-shirts that several stars were wearing at the Wellington premiere?

We'd like to tell you they were local, as at 2003's The Lord of the Rings premiere when Orlando Bloom sported a Huffer "I love NZ" T-shirt. It was apparently not a designer handout - Bloom found it himself.

But the studded Kong T-shirts worn by Andy Serkis (Kong) and Thomas Kretschmann (Captain Englehorn) were created through the collaboration of high-profile American artist and tattooist Ed Hardy and former Von Dutch designer Frenchman Christian Audigier with the movie in mind.

"We knew the movie was coming out so, we asked Hardy to come up with some images," says marketing manager Nathan Fuja.

Kretschmann and co-star Adrien Brody are fans of the Los Angeles company, called simply Ed Hardy and sited on Hollywood's Melrose Ave. They were given "a stack of T-shirts - I don't know how many" - and some gorilla caps before the premiere.

A plain unstudded Kong costs $116, but one spattered with rhinestones will set you back between $205 and $260.