Azriella’s WANT outfit!
(Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with SHINee or SM Entertainment in any way. No patterns/fabrics were gifted and all opinions are my own. My need to create SHINee cosplay for my girlies stems solely from my love of the group and each of the members ❤️)
Happy Spring Everyone! I’m so happy that it’s late May and we are still getting rain here in Portland! YAY!!! We love the rain!!! Today I wanted to break down Azriella’s latest look for Easter. It really pleases me that she likes it so much that she picked it out to wear to school today!
Every holiday I ask the same question: “What do you want your outfit to be/look like?” I always like to incorporate the girls’ ideas as much as possible, adding in my own flair, because it’s more fun for me and more fun for them if we collaborate on all of my creations! They are my muses after all!
So, when I asked Azriella she said, “Remember? I want that white Taemin shirt!” [insert many minutes googling to find the one she was talking about], I responded with “OH! That one! The one he wore for promotions for the WANT MV! That’s a cool shirt, pretty intricate (but I’m always up for a challenge!)” And a challenge it would prove to be!
First things first, I told Azriella we should find fabric together. I reminded her it didn’t have to be white; it was her shirt and it could be anything she wanted it to be! We narrowed it down to a few fabrics, and ultimately, she chose this Tula Pink fabric in lavender which we love! She’s such a sucker for rainbows and pastels and black + white (basically not beige…wonder where she got that from😂😏).
If I had to use one word to describe how I felt about this shirt, it would intimidated. I was full-on intimidated by the construction of this shirt. At first glance, it’s pretty unassuming. But when I had to knit-pick all of the details that make it come together, my brain hurt😅😵💫 . I know you might not believe me (my mother didn’t!), but this shirt was arguably more difficult to draft than Sephira’s Helium/Life on Mars outfit in its entirety! I’m not kidding!
Here’s a quick rundown of the edits/details I had to make:
redirection of the shirt orientation
elimination of the back yoke
the shoulder cut out and detail which is drafted in place of much of a proper shoulder seam
editing of the front and back neckline to omit a shoulder seam (well, almost eliminate). Only 1/4 of the shirt collar is actually sewn to the shirt bodice itself!
addition of a faux dickie (yes faux… I’ll explain later)
addition of a concealed button placket with top collar and button
editing to the collar shape and width
accommodating a semi “floating” collar
slashing and special attaching of the sleeves
Loosely… and I mean very loosely, I used the Cheyenne Shirt by Hey June for the base pattern, but I hacked it almost beyond comprehension. Each side of the pieces had to be
For one thing, it’s kind of backwards: the button placket is in the back and the front has to be sort of boatneck, so for the “front” of the shirt I actually had to use the back bodice … I don’t think I even used the front bodice piece at all, now that I think about it! To even make the back become the front though, I had to merge the back bodice bottom with the back upper yoke. And then, from the Center Front, I straightened out the line, almost like a boatneck line gone awry, getting rid of about 80% of it.
It. took. me. ages to figure out some semblance of the shoulder detail. It completely defeated me! I reinforced the shoulder area with my new BFF, weft interfacing, and I attempted to size the bias strip details to shape her shoulder. In the end, I’m really happy with it but I wish it were just a little bit lower on the middle strip.🙍🏻♀️It didn’t present itself as a problem till I started taking pictures and it began riding up.
The neckline looks like it’s attached to another shirt but it’s not…it’s just one shirt. And the collar isn’t even attached all the way around! This is how I made it: I made a faux dickie front to attach the collar to (because it is not attached to the actual front bodice main at all). You may think a faux dickie is a bit of an anomaly but it’s true! it doesn’t have a back and it’s actually sewn into the outfit itself at the shoulder seams.
I’m no stranger to a button-down shirt, but it’s been 8 years since I’ve tackled a concealed button placket! I was originally really worried about the concealed button placket but at this point with all of these other edits, it ended up being a lot more manageable than I thought! I followed this tutorial closely and applied what I needed, keeping in mind the collar stand that this shirt was going to have. I was so pleased it went well considering I had edited the collar to have both double points (ones in the front; ones in the back) and look like it was floating. There’s a portion of that collar that has absolutely zero things it is attached to at its bottom! I basically just eyed up where it looked like it ended and drafted the pieces to give the collar s p a c e, only topstitching exists there.
Lastly, I had to work the sleeves but I had done things like this in the past so I wasn’t really concerned about this bit. It’s just slashing the sleeve pattern and adding in hem allowances where they meet, making sure the gap is very, um, gappy when sewing it. Basically, that means I made the bottom stick out more than the top by misaligning them with the top sleeve bottoms by sewing them in about 1/4” from the top sleeve’s edge. Then I just topstitched them at the overlap.
By the time all of that was done, and because the memory of being bested by those Saturday Night pleated skirts was so fresh in my mind, I did something I never do: I took an existing skirt and just added buckles to it. Hey, in my defense I at least made those buckles from scratch!
And that’s it!
S I K E.
LET’S TALK ABOUT THAT GLOVE.
I agonized over what color would compliment the purple print and we settled on this sea green color for two reasons: 1.) it matches the teal/green birds on the fabric 2.) it fell within the range of “SHINee color” which is basically anything in the range of pearl aqua green. As a fandom, us shawols and the members themselves are all very attached and sentimental over this color so it just felt right to use this particular fabric from my stash.
But, man, I tell ya, the print I made on that glove is by far the most detailed vinyl design I’ve made yet! O.M.GGGGGGGGGG. It took over a day to weed it. Just weeding took a freaking day! At LEAST! I had to hold down the tiny centers of the “A” and take away all of the excess… and let’s talk about how difficult it was to weed those outline pieces!! IT WAS SO TEDIOUS!!!!! And then- and then- the tutorial I was following of course didn’t say whether the facing side was the Left/Right (heck, they weren’t even all facing the same direction for one full glove! It was mix-matched!) and I cut out the wrong glove. YES, AFTER ALL THAT WORK, I MADE A RIGHT GLOVE INSTEAD OF A LEFT!😖😖😖😖 I try to trick myself into thinking it’s fine- it’s just a mirror image of Taemin’s outfit, but deep down I know it’s wrong and it irks me to no end! UGH! Whatever, that glove is dope and I love it😂. It was my first time ever making a gusseted glove and I can tell you, I will certainly be making more (but with Left and Right sides properly marked 😅).
And that’s it. For real this time. LOL. I hope this gave you some laughs or some guidance as to how to tackle any of these sewing hurdles in your journey! Thank you so much for reading all of this and make sure to follow us on Twitter and IG for more behind the scenes for everything I make!! 😙😙😙
YAY! You're here! I'm so happy! I'm Kat! Mom, shawol, and pattern designer, this is the place where I share all of my sewing projects, chibi cosplay fashion, and DIY/tutorials! Everything around here is action-packed with color, silliness, and tons of kawaii stuff!