Boyfriend Shirt (Sewaholic Granville)

The Sewaholic Granville is a a tried and true pattern for me–I\’ve made it loads of times and I wear some version of the pattern at least once a week. A classic oxford shirt is such a wardrobe staple! I recently made a whole bunch of teeny fit adjustments for The Best Shirt Ever and now I\’m taking my adjustments OTT for a whole new look!

For this version, I went a fair bit off-piste with my pattern hacking and created my \”boyfriend\” version of the Granville. This pattern is actually one of the more fitted shirt patterns out there, with bust darts, princess seams in the back, and a slim waist, so it may seem a little counterintuitive to take the Granville as a starting point as opposed to, say, the archer, but I just love how this shirt fits in the shoulders and bust and wanted this shirt to fit like a women\’s version of a men\’s shirt, not like an actual men\’s shirt. I\’ve made the Archer before and I always felt like it swallowed be up! There\’s a big difference between, for example, the American Eagle \”boyfriend jeans\” I wore in high school and wearing actual men\’s jeans, and I always felt like the Archer edged too far towards the \”actual men\’s jeans\” end of the spectrum.

I made two major alterations to the shirt to transform it from fitted ladies\’ shirt to boyfriend-style. First, I added a lot of volume into the back of the shirt–the original has princess seams, and I removed them by grafting the center back and side back pieces together. I also added a bit of extra volume by adding pleats  at the yoke like the ones you see on men\’s shirts. They are 5/8\” deep (a total of 1 1/4\” each) because I used the seam allowances from the original pattern pieces. The second and simpler style change I made was to straighten out the side seams some. They aren\’t entirely straight, still slightly curved, but they are much less dramatic than the Granville as written. I kept the side seams the same above the dart and only changed it from the bust dart down, so that I didn\’t mess with the fit there or have to alter the dart at all, it\’s just easier! Then the only thing to keep in mind is having the curve be the same front and back!

I love the way this turned out. I had planned on using my last length of oxford cloth to make a \”perfect oxford shirt\” with the original Granville style lines, but, like, this is my perfect oxford shirt! I\’ll save that one for a ruffle collar shirt, I think… I can\’t wait to show you the pink ruffle shirt I have already made too!

xoxo,