The Story Behind the Patina x Kid Acne T-Shirt

Some collaborations make sense on paper. This one makes sense on all levels. The Patina x Kid Acne T-Shirt brings together a Leicester-rooted store and a Sheffield based artist whose connection to this city runs deeper than most might expect.  From learning to screen print at Fosse Art Centre at fifteen, to being schooled by graffiti pioneer Solo One on the outskirts of Leicester in the early nineties. When we approached Kid Acne with creative freedom and one brief, include the fox and the tiger, what came back was something that felt less like a commission and more like a homecoming. Drawn in 4B pencil, scanned, and screen printed onto a premium tee, the Patina x Kid Acne T-Shirt is a limited edition piece rooted in B-Boy energy, Midlands culture, and thirty-plus years of analogue craft. This is the story behind it.

Who is Kid Acne?

Kid Acne is a Sheffield-based artist, illustrator, and musician whose work has been a fixture of UK underground culture since the early nineties. Rooted in graffiti, hip-hop, and DIY print culture, his instantly recognisable style, bold compositions, raw linework, and characters with a quiet, knowing energy has appeared on walls, records, gallery walls, and clothing across the UK and beyond. His connection to Leicester runs long and deep: it was here, at Fosse Art Centre, that he first learned to screen print at fifteen. It was here that Solo One, one of the most influential figures in British graffiti first opened his eyes to what was possible. And it is here, with Patina, that he returns with a piece that feels less like a collaboration and more like a conversation with the city itself.

How the Patina x Kid Acne T-Shirt conversation started 

The brief was simple: include Leicester's two iconic mascots, the fox and the tiger, and the rest was left down to Kid Acne. For Kid Acne, creative freedom isn't a blank canvas so much as a starting point for problem solving. Drawing inspiration loosely from the B-Boy poses captured by legendary New York photographer Jamel Shabazz in the early eighties, he set about giving the two characters the right kind of personality,  something that would resonate beyond football and rugby fans, something universal.

The entire design was drawn by hand. 4B pencil on paper. No shortcuts, no digital construction. Kid Acne has been working almost exclusively in pencil lately, drawn to the slight unpredictability of the medium, the way it resists total control, the way the line breaks and breathes. Once scanned and adjusted in Photoshop, that rawness only deepens. The result is something that couldn't be faked: analogue in the truest sense, with all the texture and imperfection that comes from a hand that has been drawing for over thirty years.

That linework, translated to screen print, lands exactly as intended. As Kid Acne puts it, "everything aligned perfectly".

What the Artwork Represents

Leicester has two totems: the fox and the tiger. One for the city's football club, one for its rugby club but Kid Acne wasn't interested in making something that only spoke to supporters. Given full creative freedom with a single constraint, he set about finding a way to give both characters a personality that transcended sport. Something playful that had symmetry. Something that anyone could connect with.

The influence, perhaps unexpectedly, comes from New York, from the kind of effortless cool captured in a Jamel Shabazz photograph, we're talking B-Boys mid-pose, commanding the frame with a quiet confidence that needed no explanation. That energy, transplanted onto two Leicester icons, is what gives this piece its character. It is local and universal at the same time. Rooted in the city, but fluent in a visual language that travels.

It is a portrait of Leicester, drawn by someone who genuinely loves it.

Street Art, UK Cities, and the Culture Behind the Drop

Ask Kid Acne where UK street art and streetwear intersect and he'll be honest with you, it's complicated. When he first came up, there was a natural venn diagram, a shared set of references between artists, labels, and the people who wore the clothes. Graffiti, hip-hop, independent print culture, they all fed into each other. Now, with so many points of reference pulling in so many directions, predicting where things are headed feels beside the point.

What he is certain about is place. Sheffield and Leicester shaped him. Birmingham opened doors. And despite what certain voices would have you believe about north/south divides, his relationship with London is just as real.

" I really don't like the 'them and us', north/south divide mentality that certain people want to impose upon the rest of us. I have a strong connection with London too, having spent so much time there and with friends and family who've been there for years. I enjoy traveling and connecting with people wherever I go, either in the UK or abroad."

For Kid Acne, culture has never been about geography as a barrier. It travels. It connects. It finds its people.

That outlook is reflected in the cities he namechecks and the scenes he credits. In Leicester, it was Graff HQ, years of hard graft, building something from nothing, putting the city on the map. In Birmingham, it was the IKONOKLAST collective, introduced to him by Solo One, that expanded his sense of what was possible. These aren't footnotes. They are the foundation.

Limited Edition - Why This Piece Won't Hang Around

Kid Acne didn't grow up thinking in terms of limited editions. Coming from a DIY background, records, fanzines, screen prints, T-shirts, things were limited by default. Not by design, but by means. You made what you could afford to make, you found your audience where you could, and if only a handful of people picked it up, that was the reality of operating outside the mainstream. The exclusivity came later, almost by accident, as scarcity became the selling point it never set out to be.

His view on it now is measured. Limited edition can mean five pieces or five hundred. What matters is not oversaturating your output but equally, not closing the door on new people finding the work. Especially, as he puts it,

"A lot of love has gone into it."

The Patina x Kid Acne T-Shirt is a limited run. Once it's gone, it's gone. If you've read this far, you already know what went into it — the pencil, the process, the place, the people. Now it's yours to wear.

Shop the Patina x Kid Acne T-Shirt

A Full Circle Moment

Kid Acne learned to screen print in Leicester. Thirty-plus years later, he's made a beautifully screen printed T-shirt that represents the city he loves. That's not a marketing angle. That's just how it landed.

We build our collaborations around people whose work we genuinely respect, artists, labels, and makers who bring something real to what they do. Kid Acne is exactly that. This piece is exactly that.