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The sad state of tourist-trap T-shirts sold in Vancouver souvenir shops has inspired a pair of newcomers from New Zealand to create a line of designer T's worthy of the world's most beautiful city.

When Lauren McKee and Wynne Pirini moved here last spring from their native New Zealand, the couple, who had left careers as an accountant and a construction project manager respectively, were looking for a business with a creative element. A little brainstorming during a walkabout in Vancouver's touristy Gastown area yielded the Ningnong T-shirt concept.

"We wanted something that reflected the emotion of the place," Pirini says. "There are a couple of lines in New Zealand that do that pretty well - they're iconic, and give you a sense of closeness to home. They have a twist in the image you can't get from standard souvenir T-shirts. And we noticed there was nothing quite like that here, which was quite surprising."

Instead of the usual garish colours, generic designs and sack-cloth dimensions of most souvenir apparel, Ningnong shirts are sleek and fitted, and emblazoned with designer graphics that reflect the city and its enduring images. Aimed at Vancouver natives as well as visitors to the city, Ningnong (Kiwi slang for "a goof," Ningnong is also the name of a New Zealand surfing beach) T's have proved to be a hit with both tourists and locals.

As soon as McKee and Pirini arrived in Vancouver, they hired a couple of local designers to create the shirt's iconographic designs.

"The graphics represent local landmarks," says Graham Ling, manager of You and Whose Army, a Gastown boutique specializing in streetwear and tailored urban professional clothing, "but they don't have that local, tourist-y kind of feel."

First off the line was the Stellar Jay design, featuring the provincial bird and B.C.'s flower, the dogwood, set against a map of the province. Ningnong followed up with the Stanley Park (a mountain biker silhouetted against a starry sky and full moon), Whistler (a snowboard taking flight with mountains in the background), Tofino (a surfer holding a board with a sunrays motif). Hockey players, the Lions (mountain peaks visible from the city), the city's ubiquitous rain, and the signature "W" from atop the old Woodward's department store also figure into the designs.

"The tourists recognize Tofino or Stanley Park, then the local people come in and like them for the good graphics," Ling says.

It took five months to get the shirts from the idea stage into such area stores as Vasanji in Yaletown, You and Whose Army in Gastown, Life of Riley Clothing and the Vancouver Art Gallery. The couple began selling their T's on the Ningnong website (http://www.ningnongtees.com) this month. Currently, McKee and Pirini have eight designs in production, with another saluting the Okanagan Valley due within a few weeks. The men's and women's T's are $45 and the hoodie sells for $120. Both are made from high-quality spun combed cotton.

Eventually, McKee says, they would like to expand Ningnong to include shirts inspired by other cities, including Toronto, where many of the online orders are coming from.

Meanwhile, the two New Zealand expatriates are getting a warm reception in their adopted town, with invitations to show and sell their wares at Portobello West last month, held the last Sunday of every month at Rocky Mountaineer Station.