Mathias Augustyniak and Michael Amzalag of the cultishly followed French creative agency M/M (Paris) are all about secret messages, the more coded the better. An aversion to the obvious is the calling card of the press-shy duo who, over 22 years, have worked with virtually everyone in the fashion arena, most notably Givenchy’s Riccardo Tisci and Nicolas Ghesquière, now of Louis Vuitton. M/M’s new T-shirt collaboration with A.P.C. is no exception.

Needless to say, the designs are highly yet delightfully complicated. But it begins simply enough, with a T-shirt called Mister T, in reference to A.P.C. founder and designer Jean Touitou. With its recursive mise en abyme effect, it is also a drawing of a character in the shape of a T-Shirt. Meta much?

M/M also designed ‘Jean’ and ‘Judith’ motifs, another reference to Jean Touitou, as well as his wife. A bit of wordplay is at work here, naturally. As dogs are sometimes called toutous in French, the Jean motif resembles little black dogs while spelling out his name. This is in addition to a whole new typeface M/M created for the collaboration — which they do with most of their projects, to get into the right frame of mind. So this spring and summer, why not confound everyone around you with slogan tees that look like anything but?

$110-155 (men’s or women’s sizing) at A.P.C. stores and online.