III’s Style: Managing Garment Flaws

This is an outfit post. A pet peeve of mine (in fashion blogging) is to have image heavy posts without useful commentary. That won’t happen here. I enjoy dressing, and sharing my outfits with others, but it is a priority to make these posts useful beyond the visuals.

On to the outfit (from today, November 22, 2009

The Outfit:

The Details:
Blue/black/purple button down: A Fine Mess (bought through Hot Topic, seems the website doesn’t update regularly)
Black v-neck tee: Banana Republic
Black denim: Rocco jeans from Express
Shoes: Nike Basketball shoes

The Breakdown:

This outfit got it’s start in Jackson, Mississippi. I recently took a work trip there, and since I went with two women, we had the pleasure of using our downtime to shop. While at the local mall, I dropped in to Banana Republic and found a v-neck t-shirt there that looked intriguing. I was interested because I didn’t previously have any v-neck shirts, and wanted to learn how to wear them well. Further, I loved the pattern on the shirt:

Unfortunately, I did not like that the pattern stopped well before the bottom of the shirt. It left an awkward, unfilled space that makes me the shirt look somehow disproportionate. Thus, worn alone, I didn’t find it particularly effective:

On the other hand, the shirt was on clearance for 8 bucks. Thus, I decided to invest the money into learning how to much the garment work, how to manage the flaw.

The solution, as pictured above, is to wear the shirt underneath another shirt. Specifically, it must be a button-down, as another t-shirt or a polo would obscure too much of the pattern (the best feature of the shirt). By pairing it with a button-down, and only buttoning the bottom two buttons, the pattern can shine, and the blank region is hidden.

I chose this particular button down because of some subtle purple stitching throughout, which complements the yellow/gray pattern on the t-shirt. Also, the fit is great, except when buttoned through the chest, where it is a bit too tight. Another example of working around a garment flaw; by buttoning only the bottom buttons, I get all of the good fit and none of the bad.

How do you work around garment flaws? Post your experiences in the comments!

-III