Men’s Shirt Refashion 1: Summertime Dress (Part Two – Photo Shoot)

Concept: Frolicking Among the Flowers

Photographer: Wayne Vanderkuil
Location: Sunnyvale,CA

Model and Styling: Doris Cheung

It’s been far too long since I’ve made a concerted effort to put together any kind of photo shoot.  To think I used to do this all the time for school!  Back then I often used myself as a model  because I far too shy to ask anyone else to be my unpaid model for a school project. 

Modeling is quite hard!  I am not much for being a fashion model – there’s definitely a way to stand and pose that looks really weird in real life (and probably feels very awkward), but ends up looking great in photos.  Before we went out I reviewed the sketch notes that Wei-ling drew from her modeling session.  The sketches are fantastic, but I unfortunately wasn’t able to put much into practice – practicing in front of a mirror would have been very helpful.  There’s definitely fashion posing, and then there’s me.  Usually I end up liking things that look more natural.

This particular shoot I knew I wanted to be in among fields of mustard.  I can see the bright yellow flowers all along the freeway on my drive home, and thought they would be a perfect match with the yellow on the dress.  I had originally selected Heritage Orchard Park in Sunnyvale as the location for the shoot based off photos I’d found – only to discover on the day of that the fields have been plowed!  Well.  The potentially disastrous lack of research was averted when a field down the street turned out to be a perfect substitute.  

For outdoor shoots I highly recommend overcast days.  The lighting is much more even (no harsh shadows) and flattering for people and the colors will tend to be a little more saturated.  I tried the fashion thing, but these photos here I was just walking and moving around aside from the more posed “is it going to rain” one.  I wanted to focus on the dress and not myself as a model, so I like the ones with less of my face showing.  Incidentally, I’m wearing makeup practically applied with a trowel because I’m currently suffering through a very bad spell of allergies/eczema around my eyes, and much more eyeliner  than I would wear, say, to work.  However, it doesn’t actually show up that much in the photos so I am really pleased with the more natural look.  

Photo post processing didn't include a super amount of retouching (hm, due to my laziness?)  I popped out the saturation and contrast, and brightened up the whites with a slight glow.

Lastly, I guess I went a little nuts and made a parasol to go with the shoot.  I had stumbled across this wonderful tutorial - crafts from the dollar store!  Lo and behold written by the same blogger I've been following for tutorials recently. (Yup, my blog is not going to be about crafts I've invented, but lots of links to tutorials I've found!)  This parasol probably wouldn't hold up to an real rain...or sun...but the intention was to use it as a diffuser in case of harsh sunlight.  A very fashionable diffuser.


I think I can call this project done - except, I'm still waiting for warm weather to wear it!  I'm looking forward to spring and summer. :)

Lastly - a HUGE thank you to my friend and co-worker Wayne (check out his Flickr site here), who shot all these photos for me.  Not everyone would go along with "hey. You wanna shoot some pictures of me in a field of flowers?" with such an immediate "Sure!"  Many, many thanks. 

Men’s Shirt Refashon 1: Summertime Dress (Part One – The Dress)

raw materials #2

the inspiration

I was digging through a bag of clothes my mom wanted to take out to donate a couple of months ago and came across a silk dress shirt of an unflattering size and style for me.  The fabric was so gorgeous I shoved it straight into my “do something with later” pile and started Googling for ideas.  

I came across this super cute refashioning that I instantly wanted to try.  (Visit her etsy shop here.) I couldn’t just try it straightaway on the silk shirt, so I had to stop off at Goodwill and pick up a few men’s shirts to practice on.  The idea had been to just make a simple, practice neckline.  From there it turned into a dress, with a photo shoot, and a matching parasol.  Well…I guess I don’t do simple very well!

I started with an XL men’s dress shirt and combined it with this dress I never wear.  It’s super cute, but the material is thin.  A slip might have solved the problem, but I cut it up so that also solved that problem.  It took me a few weeks to make this since I had to figure out what I was going to do as I went along.  I didn’t really have a plan aside from working on that neckline, so there was a lot of cutting apart of what I had sewn to rework it. 

I don’t feel comfortable offering a tutorial on how I did end up putting together the top as the original idea belongs to someone else who sells it.  However, I will say that it wasn’t too bad to reverse engineer it for anyone else who thought that it was a great way to re-imagine a shirt! 

Here’s what I ended up with, front and back view.  The checked pattern of the cloth really suggested an innocent sundress, it’s very Dorothy inspired as well.  I later on added on the yellow underlayer because just the shirt alone as a dress still looked like…I’m wearing a men’s shirt and nothing else.  I ended up shirring (and here is a great tutorial on how to do that!) a large section of the back as a cheater method of making it fit.  I’d sewn darts along the back but I suck at making it super tailored.  The shirring ended up being so cute as a panel (and it REALLY did the trick on making it more form-fitting) that I will have to make another dress with it on purpose. 

I can't wait for the weather to be actually WARM so I can wear this dress.  Stay tuned for taking the dress out of this yucky looking field and into a pretty one for the photo shoot segment!

Cardigan refashion

A few months ago I stumbled across this fun tutorial on Ruffles and Stuff, my new favorite crafty inspiration blog.  This project looked pretty easy, and I’ve been dying to try it for awhile now.  

I used a chiffon shirt I never wear (a Forever21 purchase that I never liked the color of) for the trim and embellishment.  Originally I used the shirt to make a pleated edge and flowers around a different cardigan only to discover to my chagrin the colors clashed badly with each other and everything else in my wardrobe. Luckily I had an old shapeless tunic/shift/jumper thing that WAS the perfect color.  These shift things were all the rage a few years ago, but really…no one looks good in something shapeless unless you have a supermodel body.  I tried repurposing this thing as a dance cover up and then shoved it to the bottom of my drawer. 

I made a cut up the middle to transform it into a jacket and added a few chiffon flowers.  So simple!  I was going to go further and add the pleats along the neckline as well, but now I’m not sure.  It might get a little busy.

I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I figured that if I sacrifice two items I never wear anymore, and wear the result at least once, it’s worth it!  I got a few (unsolicited, I swear!) compliments on the end outfit, so I’ll be wearing it again for sure.  Here I’m wearing it with a pink shirt that perfectly matches in color (sniff…that shirt is basically falling apart but I love it so, and I’ll never find another shirt that matches so well), and a $3 Daiso scarf.  Woo!  It felt good to change up the jeans and t-shirt look, although next time I'll wait for a warmer day to wear the light spring layers.

The master plan of a super comfortable, yet nice looking Friday outfit: yes!