whiplash - Book reviews
Part of the whiplash prizes this month is the book ‘Generation T; 108 ways to transform a t-shirt’ by Megan Nicole.
A while ago Zoe wrote up a bit of a review of the instructions on the generation T website, which she reckons was pretty easy to follow.
Megan is a resourceful, thrifty and fashion conscious chic with a love of making things. In this book she takes the blank canvas of a t-shirt and re-fashions it over and over again to express her style and mood and creates an original personalised outfit out of old t-shirts, what is even better is that she gives instructions for us to do the same.
The books begins with the basics: inspiration, supplies, measurements, types of fabrics, stitches, style tips and very importantly the anatomy of a t-shirt, so you can figure out exactly what you are doing.
Then comes de-construction, thats right - cutting, slashing, snipping that old or boring Tee up. This section involves projects with lots of excellent illustrations and a couple of black and white photos. These projects are not for everyone, but hey we all have our own ideas of what is cool. I don’t mind the slashed t’s, or the cute ruffled sleeves or wide a-symetrical necklines, but I draw the line at the tribal fringeing and the safety pinned sides.
Next comes the party shirts, some major alterations happening here such as joining two t’s together, adding a hood, lots more slashing and revealing of skin, some really good ideas like how to alter necklines, using drawstrings and tying to add charactor, different ideas for sleeves or no sleeves as well as decorative options. … My god even more shirt is cut away in chapter 4, not much left now, they just keep getting smaller, this is the sexy summer section with halter tops and bikinis all made out of the good old Tee.
What else can you do with a t-shirt? surely there’s more than more shirts? Well yes in fact there is. Turn your old t-shirt into a skirt, a poncho, a flapper dress, bags, belts, and more. The middle section of the book contains full colour images of most of the projects, so you can really visualise what you can achieve. Lots of these are pretty cool, but if you are not stick thin some of the drapey and loose bits might not work so well for you.
In conclusion while the book contains lots of great ideas, with good illustrations, and photos, most of these projects would not suit everyone, but as the book is aimed at teens and young twenties this is probably ok. I would definitely get this book for a young fashion conscious teen who is into diy, what fun they could have expressing themselves and experimenting - and how good it feels to take a pair of scissors to some old ugly outfit that you never wear. I might even get this book for myself if I had less flesh and wasn’t cultivating grandma flaps on my arms!
