The Frustrated Designer III: The Technicolor Silk Surf Shirt

Remember this shirt I sketched up a few weeks ago,

upon the purchase of this multi-colored plaid silk?

After weeks upon weeks of waiting, delays, and more than a few trips back to the tailor for revisions, the shirt is done.  It took quite a while to tweak the piece into what I had originally envisioned it to be, first because of some fit problems, and second because of styling problems---a couple which proved hair-pullingly disconcerting.  The sewer in charge of my shirt originally attached what I could only describe as a limp, pointed, flat, modified peter pan collar on to the shirt which rendered it beyond unwearable, even for a woman in her mid-fifties.  (Although my less-than-professional sketch might be partly to blame for this.)  He also attached glittery green buttons to the plaid part of the shirt, perhaps in an effort to make the buttons less conspicuous.  I shall spare you the horrors of a photograph, words are grotesque enough.  

So here is the finished product, faithful to my original design:

the sketch incarnate

But, after a healthy amount of looking in the mirror and trying it on with my clothes, the shirt was just appearing overly cartoony owing to the presence of the two black pockets in front.  So snip, snip, they were gone in a matter of minutes.

minus the cartoony pockets

In the end, the shirt didn't exude that much of a Dries vibe as I had intended it to; rather, it felt more like a surfey, beachy top, albeit a slightly more luxe one because of the fabric.  Its slight resemblance to this Quiksilver x Takashi Kumagai shirt reinforces that idea.  Building on the surfey theme then, off I went to my brother's room then to snatch his frogskins!  Here it is worn:

Oakley frogskins, DIY whistle necklace, cotton+silk shirt designed by me, Greyhound jeans, Muji plimsolls

Sometimes I wonder why I put myself through all this trouble, this last project was a couple of sighs short of being a serious pain in the tush.  But when I get to thinking how I'm the only one in the entire blogosphere, or the entire world for that matter, with such a piece, I say, to the fabric store we go!