The Return of Tony Melillo's T's Longtime devotees of the sportswear designer Tony Melillo will be pleased to learn that, after roughly a three-year absence, his precision-cut T-shirts will be returning to stores next month through an exclusive arrangement with Barneys New York. Since the start of his original Nova USA collection 15 years ago, as well as during his 2003 collaboration with Generra and at least two earlier attempts to develop a signature brand, Mr. Melillo has been a friend to people who care about where the sleeves and hems of their basics fall on bodies with good biceps. Some physically fit customers have been known to hold onto Mr. Melillo's T-shirts for years, parceling their wear selectively to make them last longer. For his latest incarnation, a label called ATM by Anthony Thomas Melillo, he spent nine months developing fits and fabrics, working with a factory in Peru. While showing the collection in the photography studio of his friend Kelly Klein this week, Mr. Melillo was wearing a denim blue T-shirt with a six-and-a-half-inch deep V-neck and a length of exactly 28-and-a-half inches (just a nudge longer than the industry standard). Atypically, the ATM label appeared as a print on the inner right armpit, an insider's reference to where Mr. Melillo happens to have a tattoo of his initials. "It's a particular fit," Mr. Melillo said, "and it might not be for everyone." While this might sound a little self-defeating, Mr. Melillo is determined to design things exactly his way. His earlier ventures were sidelined by the vagaries of financial backers or his efforts to please everyone, but the difference with ATM is that he need not worry so much. After suspending his last signature line during the recession, Mr. Melillo, in 2009, was a founder of Cynosure Holdings, a company that develops celebrity-branded collections for the mass market. Its collaboration with Selena Gomez for Kmart, for which Mr. Melillo is the creative director, had estimated sales of $100 million last year, and a new line is being developed with the actress Vanessa Hudgens. "I'm not looking to make a 100 percent killing today, but it's nice to be a part of the fashion world," Mr. Melillo said. What I learned in this business is that it's not so bad to be item driven. In somewhat unusual positioning for Barneys, T-shirts for men and women will be displayed together in some stores. With the branding expert Doug Lloyd, Mr. Melillo has designed a large black box display with his initials printed on one side. At the Madison Avenue flagship, it is expected to be positioned near the Genes@Co-op cafe, between the men's and women's Co-op departments, Mr. Melillo said. His T-shirts will cost $58 to $82, with crew necks, tanks and henleys in basic black, white and gray versions, plus a few fashion colors like eggplant, lavender and a bright blue. Another particularity of Mr. Melillo's shirts is that some of the women's styles are cut with a scooping shirttail hem. He said he wanted something longer that would offer a tad more coverage.