man's dress shirt - reconstruction - deconstructed look

This is a moderate reconstruction of a man's dress shirt that fit just a tiny bit big but not big enough to take all the way apart and put back together again.

Take a boring old man's shirt like this:


Turn it into a deconstructed semi victorian fitted shirt  like this:

 

Stuff you will need

• scissors
• a sewing machine
• thread in the color of the shirt or close
• a needle
• elastic (thin or small)
• Lace (optional - I like to salvage lace off other stuff I find)
• a shirt that fits you as described above
• chalk 

Phase One

You can use pins or chalk whatever you like and you should be wearing the shirt to make the marks.
Mark across where  the tightest part of where your boobs are (mark A)
Mark under where the curve of boob are (Mark B)
Mark across the center of each boob where it sticks out the most (Mark C)
Mark where you would like your new shirt to land (ish) (Mark E)

Cut off the bottom the shirt you don't need (cut through both sides) as set aside material for later. Start this cut about 2 or 3 inches below the line you made for the bottom of the shirt (Mark E). This 2 or 3 inches is for the ruching and for the hem... so if you use hem tape don't work about it. And the more you leave after the mark the more tucks you will have in the ruching. Next run a temp basting stitch allong the sides seams down the the end of the shirt and take up the left over 2 or three inches for temporary ruching. Do it on both sides.

Now put the  shirt back on and make these marks:

Nip in to the smallest part of your waist and mark it (Mark D)

Make sure the marks are really clear. Take the shirt off and take out the temp ruching.

Phase 2

Cut off the "wings" part of the collar as close as you can. but leave the ring with the top button.
Make a pattern and mark out the ovally front darts. This is how I make the pattern for the front darts. Measure from the edge of the shirt to where you made mark (D). Compare those measurements on both sides and even them up... so if one side was 3.5 inches but the other was 3 inches split the difference and you should get 3.25 inchs... do this on the front and the back to even up your math. Oh, when I am doing this I am only going from the seam to the mark on one side of the shirt. Let's pretend the averaged number was 3 inches. So this is the most fabric I need to get rid of on the front — meaning that I need each diamond to be 1.5 inches across at its fattest point. Now you need to figure out now far down and up each dart needs to go. Measure from B to D and that is the top of the diamond. Lets say for fun it is 6.5 inches. Measure from B to E and that is how tall the total dart is - lets say 10 inches. So the bottom part of the dart is gonna be 3.5 inches. Like this:

 

Now the back dart is made the same way except you make it go all the way up to mark A. 

The darts in the back should be about 8 inches apart or line up roughly with your shoulderblades.  The darts in the front should line up with mark C. I tried to diagram it here:

  

Try it on and adjust the darts as needed. Remember you are gonna ruch up the sides though! After you are done there are two ways to ruch the sides. You can rebaste, scrunch it up the way you would like and then sew it down.  Or you can do it with elastic. Measure from the top of the side seam to mark E and cut a piece of elastic that long. Sew it to the inside of the shirt while streatching the elastic... there are lots of tutorials on how to do this at places like crafter.org.

Phase Three:

Now lets start the fun stuff. Collar and cuffs With your shirt on mark where the end of your wrist hits... do this with your arms slightly bent... otherwise it will pull alot when you wear it.

  

Now cut off the cuff about .5 to 1 inch above the stiff part of the cuff then cut off and sew uu any extra sleeve detail bits. Cut and sew as close as possible to the existing seams and make sure you can get your hand comfortably through the sleeve.

Now fold back the sleeve until you have it just a tiny bit more than your desired lenght... make sure to do this with the cuff bit you are gonna add back taken into account. 

 

Now pin the hard cuff back on... you will most likely have to add tucks and ruffles at this point. as you bit in the extra bit stick your arm through and see if you like where they land. Adjust as needed and sew on just below the hard bit of the cuff. Trim off any extra to get the desired even deconstructed ruffle effect desired.

As a variation you could also add lace or anything else to the sleeve instead of folding it back.

  

Now for the collar. measure around the collar and then add half again to that number plus one inch. So if my collar was 18 inches the number I would get would be 28 inches. Take the left over material you cut off the bottom. and cut it in 1.5 inch wise strips until you get enough to make up the number you came up with. Run a basting stitch through one edge of the strip you made and ruffle it up like so:

  

Once you have a ruffle you like pin it to the collar of your shirt and sew it on. Watch out for breaking your needles if the fabric has been starched or is way stiff. I like to sew once at the top and once at the bottom of the collar for a nice finished look.  Try your cool new shirt on and trim down the collar to the place you like ... do it in steps other wise you will have to re do the collar. You could also add lace instead of material if you wanted for this step.

 

Feel free to ask any question  and I would love to see anything anyone else has made.