#66: Menswear

After many clothing transformations remade for myself, I had a some folks asking me when I would try something with menswear. Well, ladies and gentlemen, today is that day! In my opinion, menswear is so much more limited than women's clothing. I wasn't very inspired until I found the perfect piece...


I found this shirt at a local thrift shop for super cheap. You can imagine why (my husband/model didn't even want to show his face in this shirt!).

Before

It also had so much material under the arm that it looked like a wingsuit.

Wingsuit

I think it was actually a women's shirt, but the collar and shininess inspired me to see it with potential Indian style flair.

Simple Indian Kurta

I had something in mind, but needed another piece, so I found this shirt at a thrift store for a buck.



Before

Before: From behind

I am only used to making clothes to fit my body. Menswear is a whole different category with which I have no experience, and men's bodies are so much different to size than women's. So this was more like an experiment.


In order to get the look I wanted, I first removed the fancy buttons.

Fancy buttons

Next, I removed the shoulder pads.

My man has enough shoulders, thank you ;)

 The main thing was removing that orange lace from the front. I actually had to remove the button and shoulder seams completely to get it all out and sew the shirt back together.

One side gone

This shirt had ridiculously large underarm material, and was ultra long, but was very narrow at the hips. In order to get the sizing right, I used one of my husband's work shirts as a template.

Sizing the shirt

I pinned, outlined, and cut off a large portion of the underarm and sleeve.

Cutting the sleeve

Then I shortened the sleeve and measured it out over the white shirt.

Making a new sleeve

I had never made sleeves before, so this was basically trial and error...with little error!

I pinned and sewed the open sleeve...

Pinning the sleeve

...then sewed the sleeve and side seams.



Sewing the sleeve and side seams

I sewed a new hem around the sleeves, and sewed a new hem around the bottom to shorten the shirt.


The only buttons of the same size that I had at the time were all mismatch (pink, orange, black, clear), so I colored the buttons black with a permanent marker. Quick fix!

Coloring the buttons

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

For the second piece, I'm makin' a vest. I took the black shirt and cut off the sleeves.

Cut off the sleeves

Sleeveless

I also removed the collar and zipper. Then I cut and folded the neckline to a deeper V.

Removed the zipper

After that, I folded, pinned, and sewed the arm holes and took in the sides a bit.



Preparing the new arm holes

Sewing the arm holes

I tried to do some fancy design around the collar, but it didn't really show up very well. Oh well!


A newly-transformed shirt and sweater-like vest make my menswear project complete!

Here again is how they looked before:

Before

Before

And here is the new menswear look!

After



After: From behind

So there it is. I hope you liked this menswear transformation. Honestly, I don't think I'll be doing another one any time soon unless I become ultra-inspired again (plus, I don't think my husband will want to model anymore).

I hope you enjoyed it! Feel free to leave a comment below letting me know what you think.

Thanks, and come back again soon!

Until next time, blessings.