Some people take surfing lessons, sign up for pottery classes, or get really into gardening once summer rolls around. I, however, prefer to buy a €5 men’s shirt and treat it like origami, cinching, twisting, and tucking it in all the right places until it resembles an entirely different garment. My second-favorite hobby is watching my boyfriend’s increasingly concerned expression every time I come home with another oversized shirt that looks like it belonged to someone’s uncle. He knows what’s coming: twenty minutes of aggressive manipulation and a full-blown identity crisis for the shirt in question. By the end of it, what started out as a button-down has somehow become a draped top, an asymmetric blouse, or, on particularly ambitious days, a bubble skirt. So, chances are your shirts are bored. Here’s what to do about it.
As good as the following transformations look, I’d be lying if I said I don’t also throw an oversized shirt on and call it a dress from time to time. Beach clubs, seaside tavernas, and anyone trying to enforce a dress code have all suffered as a result. But we’re here to discuss what happens when a shirt is given too much freedom and I am left unsupervised. For a softly draped wrap-style top with just the right amount of asymmetric waist action, take your shirt and refuse to button it. Grab the side with the buttons and pull it around your waist, almost as if you’re tying a cardigan around yourself. Then bring the opposite side across your body and over the first, and find the spot at the side of your waist where you’d like all the drama to happen (if your shirt is comically oversized, feel free to steal some fabric from under the opposite armpit and bring it over to the gathering point at your waist). Hold everything in place, reach underneath until you find the gathered bundle of fabric at your side, and secure it with a hair tie. And voilà, you’ve got yourself something you’d spend €120 on after seeing it described as “architectural.”
This one requires a small leap of faith. Take your shirt and put it on backwards. Let the collar stand up like you’ve accidentally committed to a very elegant turtleneck situation, and button it at the back, but make sure to leave one or two buttons undone, just enough to create what I will generously call “deliberate panels.” Go to the front again (which is technically the back, but we’re not doing spatial ethics today), and fold the lower part upwards into a clean, narrow band until around waist height, so it naturally cinches the body. What’s left are two deliberate panels hanging behind you. Gather them, tie them into a bow at the back, and accept that you have somehow created a top that looks both intentional and mildly delusional in the best possible way.
If your shirt’s pattern doesn’t really cooperate with the folding situation, but you still feel emotionally committed to the backwards idea, just wear it backwards anyway. Button it all the way at the back, then decide what your hands are doing: either let them hang dramatically through the undone sleeve openings, or, if you’re feeling slightly more functional, keep them in the sleeves, rolled up for a more “this is under control” effect. For a going-out top, your oversized uncle shirt is not invited. But if you have a smaller, preferably satin one, we can proceed. Take the hem of the shirt and bring it up around your neck, tying it so the two resulting panels form a bow. At the front, this creates a draped, deep neckline situation that looks like it has plans for the evening. Then take the sleeves, which are now just hanging there doing their own thing, and bring them to the back, making sure everything at the front is neatly tucked in and sitting flat so you get a clean, straight hem. Finally, take those same sleeves and tie them into a bow at the back to match the one above them, and you’re done.
We are now entering skirt territory, where logic is not consulted. You can actually make the perfect skirt if you have two shirts with similar length and matching button plackets, so the one can literally live inside the other. The pattern and color, however, are better when they don’t match at all. We are past harmony at this stage. Take the first shirt and button it into the second one, so they become one continuous piece. The collars end up circling your waist like they’ve accepted their new role in life, and you button everything down until you reach the end. And that’s your skirt. If a bubble skirt feels more interesting, make sure you’re wearing tight athletic shorts underneath. Then only button the shirts as far as you want the skirt length to be, and take the excess fabric and tuck it into the shorts all the way around. What you’re left with is volume, intention, and the uneasy awareness that it works anyway.
