Sunday, December 12, 2010

Man's shirt, feminised. Somewhat.

After the fiasco of the last time I tried to refashion a men's dress shirt, it was a very long time before I set to on the other shirt that the boy gave me. This time around, I used a tunic sewing pattern (New Look 6808) to feminise this shirt. I sewed the front down so that it's now a pullover rather than a button-down, omitted the back and front darts (but left in the bust darts) for a loose fit, and used a contrast fabric for the sleeve and neck facings. The  contrast fabric was cut from a piece of skirt material that used to belong to the boy's lovely mum, which I never used because the print is too big for my body size. From the front, I'd say it was a success.

From the side, it's okay - not fab, not hideous.

But from the back I look like man...

5 comments:

Antoinette said...

I'm digging it! I like the contrast turn-back bits esp. If I could make a suggestion about that back view: a couple of fish-eye darts will take in the bagginess at the waist and provide additional visual cues that a woman lies resides beneath. Though I think the back view as it is looks AOK for a casual shirt.

Violet said...

yeah I think I'm going to have to do a couple of back darts or something. I've always had a bit of a brick-like figure, but I reckon in this shirt it's really really obvious!

Glad you like the contrast bits - I was pleased with myself that I thought to use that fabric, which has been my printer cover for the last two years!

Anonymous said...

I think it looks good? Maybe you could kind of elasticise a bit at the back so that it goes a bit gathered (am thinking how some of my preggy tops went).

Watson Woodworth said...

I had to get out one of my button down shirts to see if you switched the buttons to the other side.
I like it.

Violet said...

donnasoowho: yeah I could do elastic, or a tie, but I'll end up just going for the least time-consuming option!

I wouldn't bother switching buttons Nige, not for the sake of keeping with tradition.