Deconstruction Fashion using mens shirts

November 27, 2014 Lauren Digby

My latest textiles project was to make a piece of clothing from pieces of existing clothing, known as deconstruction fashion. Aspects of the original garments should remain. To start, I removed all of the collars and cuffs from several old men’s shirts. The cuffs were set aside for later. I buttoned 2 contrasting collars together and placed them at the waist of the mannequin to form a waistband. They were overlapped at the back which formed interesting geometric shapes with the points of the collars. I placed another 2 collars underneath, making a waistband which unbuttons at the front consisting of 4 collars from different shirts.

Next I ripped all of the shirt backs, from the shirt and sewed them together side seam to side seam. I kept the hems of the original shirts which gave varied shaped hem lengths. The long line of shirt backs was then gathered at the top and sewn to the collar waistband to form a skirt.

I took a left front and right front piece from contrasting shirts and buttoned them together, pinning them to the mannequin. The shoulder seams were gathered tightly to form straps, resulting in a V neck. Strips of fabric were braided together which formed straps at the back and also down the side of the bodice, giving a bit of detail to the ensemble.

I think the final garment looks wearable which is good if you want to sell your products. I am also glad that you can still see the origins of the shirt in the waistband of the skirt. The quality of stitching is not very good, and isn’t very stable which could be improved with a bigger timescale. The front bodice wrinkles as a result of poor fit, which maybe darts could improve. Overall I'm really happy with it. I felt like I was on project runway while making it and I had so much fun!

Thanks for reading and to Ed for the photos!

Lauren xx