My first copycat – Men’s shirt into blouse

You know when you go shopping and just after having entered your favorite store , your eyes stop upon that beautiful piece of shirt you wanted for a month now , but has not been accessible for your budget , to say the least . Well now you see its selling price is 70% less than the original. Whaddaya do? Of course you don’t think about it , you just move towards it as fast as you can, hoping that no one saw what you did and you grab that object of desire. Triumph!

This is what happened to me last year , only it was my husband’s shirt. I bought it without checking it’s size , well , I did stretch the shirt to measure it optically, and I thought it fitted , but after I got home and made him try it , it was a size too small. The price was great though , I had a 50 % off coupon and the original cost was around 40 euros, which was then lowered to 34 euros, then to 24euros . So I got it for 12 euros .

The fabric is light linen , it has wooden buttons and the color it white , not beige as seen in the photos.

Now for the copycat part , I was in a H&M store and they had just brought in the lace collection  , you know, the ones where everything has lace on them. So I was browsing this collection , but the prices seemed a bit too high for my taste. A simple polyester short sleeved shirt with a 2 inch strap of  applied lace cost around 25 euros , where one without the lace was around 12 euros. (It is not exactly this model  , the one I was looking at had more lace on it and it looked more casual)

So I was thinking , how fun would it be if I could just upcycled the  white shirt that just sits in the back of the closet :

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The first interventions were : removing the pockets and cutting the neck collar.

The I cut the buttons and the button holes. After that I cut a strap of fabric from a t-shirt I failed to refashion once – its purpose is to enlarge to shirt , to make it more comfortable .

Then I pinned down the lace straps on the shirt ….

…..and then sewed them onto it.

This is the end result …well… not really… I still have to do a little work at the neckline – it is a bit too loose. – But for now , I am pleased with it, it is wearable!

What do you think , should I apply more lace to it  ? I’d love some opinions  , Thanks!