Giambattista Valli Knockoff Tee

My conference is successfully concluded! All the speakers showed up, discussions were lively, the audience participated, and I feel that I got a lot of recognition for my hard work. I am still completely exhausted and counting the MINUTES until I leave for Miami on Monday, but I am pleased with how well everything turned out.

Now back to regularly scheduled blogging.



A while back, Eli blogged over at The Princess Seam about projects she wanted to knock off, and this tee was one of them. Unfortunately, I couldn't find it anywhere (net-a-porter, Giambattista Valli's site, etc.) so I only have the one reference photo. I like how it retains the basic, simple cap sleeve t-shirt silhouette while still being interesting. I really like my t-shirt staples because they are easy to wear, but I get totally bored of just a plain tee. I like them to have a little twist, like my H&M knockoff (which I've now made twice).

I was immediately taken with the shirt and put it on my project list. When I switched over to Spring sewing, this was on deck first.

I started with my basic tried and true T shirt pattern. I redrafted it to have a cap sleeve and tiny bit of a mock turtle neck/standing collar, because from what I can tell of the t-shirt it has a tiny collar in the back. I made the first muslin and then marked up the draft:



Once I was happy with the fit of the basic shape, I marked the cutting line between the body of the front and the sleeve, and cut and spread the front to create space for gathers:



You can see in the photo that I added some tissue onto the cut off front and sleeve to round the edges of the pieces. This turned out to create an unpleasant pooching (visible in muslin 3) and I flattened the pieces back out to their original dimensions.

Now came the real work. The issue was the ratio of the joining edge of the sleeve and the bodice. This took me forever to get right! All told, I made 8 muslins for this simple top.



You can see that the final proportion of front bodice to sleeve/inset is pretty dramatic. The bodice is gathered to about 1/3 of its original size and the sleeve inset seam line is quite short, about 4 inches.



I made this in an aqua lace from the G Street $2.97/yd table, so it had to be lined. I'm not sure if there would be a better way to finish the neck/collar edge anyway. I made the lining from the back and the front piece before splitting, put it on my still unnamed paper tape double and marked the front divot and the gathering on the front at the side seams.

It came out really cute, although in my thick fabric the side seam gathers are kind of lost. Looking at the reference photo again, I see the joining seam between the bodice and the sleeve/inset actually goes down below the armscye and there is gathering along the neck edge opposite the inset side, so I might redraft it with those changes. I got some very lightweight jersey from G Street the last time I was there that I think will be more apt than the fairly heavy knit lace I used for this version. I still haven't quite decided what I'm taking to Miami next week (!!!!) but this is high on the list!

All photos are here and the pattern review is here.