This shirt is HUUUUGE!

I recently bought the pattern for the Phen Shirt, after seeing versions I loved on Instagram. 

Behold:

How could I resist this crazy silhouette? The beautiful deep back yoke? The stitched down box pleat? The big, fat hanging loop? So fun!

The shirt is basically a big flat circle. The side seams slant from way out, below the extremely low armscye, and end up forming part of a big continuous curve to the hem. 

This means you have a big amount of shirt up top and a little amount below. If you tuck it in to create that fun back view, there is relatively little bulk to deal with. This seems clever. 

The sleeves are ridiculous too, starting way down on the arm and going from extremely wide to a quite narrow, curved cuff. They are (in theory) the perfect length for me, and the cuff is the perfect width for me. Which should be a warning to you, because I have short arms and am very small boned.

However, in the wearing, the Phen Shirt is not so beautiful.

Here it is tucked in, from the front.

That is a lot of fabric falling off my shoulders. The big pockets are sagging. And I made the smallest size (6) when my measurements put me in size 8. 

Maybe my fabric is a tiny bit heavier than the pattern can bear. It was a mystery fabric from stash which a burn test tells me is 100% cotton, but it's got a slightly sanded soft hand, and is the weight of silk noile. Handkerchief linen might have been a better choice.

But meh.

The back view is slightly better, but still more saggy than I would have liked.

All the photos I liked on Instagram (including the one up above) showed wearers with their arms out, but not too out.

So the shirt doesn't sag too much, but the shirt's other limitations are not evident either. 

Are there full length arms
in there somewhere?

See what happens when you really put your arms out in this shirt?

For all that ease, there's not a ton of room to actually move in this.

Also, can I talk about the collar?

There are 3 views - collarless (stand only), tie collar and the more standard shirt collar I made.

The stand is extremely curved, so much so that it actually doesn't stand up. It would lie quite flat around the neck, if left to its own devices. 

But it isn't left to its own devices if you want to make the little shirt collar.

Have a look at how curved the stand is, by comparison with the collar. 

The lower edge of the collar piece in this photo attaches to the upper edge of the stand. 

While the two pieces fit together, in the sense that the edges are the same length, the combination of curves makes for a collar that really does not ever want to be buttoned up. 

As you can see, the collar piece is straining. It is too short around the lower edge and too flat. But I'm never going to wear this shirt buttoned up anyway, so it doesn't matter.

This is a big shirt that can only be worn open, with the cuffs rolled up (if you want to be able to move in it). 

That's OK, but I'm saving my linen blend jacquard fabric for another pattern. 

It looks fine as an open over-shirt
That's the way I will always wear it!