Men’s shirts is by far my favourite category of clothing to repurpose. The larger size just gives me so much flexibility to experiment with shape, length and silhouette.
We usually find a lot of people we can directly donate shirts to. So I don’t put shirts in my upcycling kitty if I find someone who’d rather wear it. I use them as is (because they are big and comfy) so it can be donated later.
My brother has a bunch of shirts that he has discarded as they are either faded, torn or don’t fit anymore. The charity suitcase we have back home is like Disneyland for me!
How I repurposed a Men’s shirt to Women’s?
I found this particular white light denim shirt in there. It had a small tear and some colour bleeding marks from under the collar to the shoulders. Upcycling mens shirts being my favourite task, I took this on with great joy!
First: I decided to bleach the shirt to fix the colour bleeding. Then sowed and fixed the tear.
Second: To give it a slight lady-like fit I tucked the upper sleeve and arm hole area. I tapered it down to the chest, and left the rest for a straight fit.
Third: I was left to fix one small issue now – the shoulder! To make it fit my relatively narrow shoulder, I tucked it in 3 equal spots between the armhole and collar to fit my measurement.
Fourth: I also removed the upper collar and turned this into a Chinese collar shirt which helps me pull it off on semi-formal occasions as well!
The best part is that this fabric seems sturdy. So in case I do decide to donate this in a few years, I can to remove the shoulder tucks and a lean boy will fit into it perfectly.