Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Button Up Refashion

Don't mind the contrapposto...or the pink
My boyfriend recently culled his button up shirt collection. I was right next to him helping the process by going, "really?! that one?" but he was far more ruthless than I could ever be. This shirt was the first of the pile to get the refashioning treatment since I love menswear tailoring and pin tucks/ruffled pleats more than it's probably healthy.
Since L men's is rather boxy, huge, and unflattering for me I started out by tearing out the side seams and removing the sleeves (aprox. 7 inches too long for me). I let out the sleeve seam allowances to provide a bit of a cap but sewed up the sides into a more curvy silhouette. I removed the collar but sewed up the collar stand because that provided just enough of a collar to make it girly/blousy but still mensweary. I added some bust darts to take up the strange amount of fabric above the *ahem* curvy bits and added some more buttons (and buttonholes) to hide the aforementioned curvy bits. The sleeve caps got bias bound to finish them off and the bottom got cut and sewn into a new curved hem. Ta-dah! A sleeveless blouse that's long enough to cover the posterior with some fantastic pleats! (and no, it'll probably be never ironed again)