There is no need to pay a ton of money for a t-shirt like this, but if you want to you totally can.
Kendrick likes to make fun of me for the MySpace profile I had when we first met (which was also his first impression of me, because we met when I “friended” – or “liked”? How did MySpace work again? – his band, and he invited me to one of their concerts). In my “about me,” I wrote about loving my dog and Kraft macaroni and cheese (obviously; both of these facts remain true), and also about how my favorite thing to wear was t-shirts so thin they were practically disintegrating. And oh, I get why he makes fun of me for this (“aren’t I sex-ay? With my t-shirts that are practically disintegrating?”), but it’s also…actually…true.
See, I’m extremely specific about t-shirt fabric weight; it’s one of my things. If a shirt feels heavy in the slightest, I do not like wearing it. If, however, it is essentially a tissue, I will love it forever and ever and wear it until it grows holes, and then I will love it even more.
Sometimes I get impatient waiting for the point in the t-shirt aging process where it hits my personal Platonic ideal, though, and I start considering buying a pre-distressed t-shirt, but then I hear my grandmother’s voice in my head yelling at me for buying something with holes in it and I (usually) can’t. I can, however, turn a shirt that I don’t wear very often into a shirt I will wear all the time, forever and always, because it’s just going to keep getting better.
Here is Francesca, wearing the t-shirt that inspired this particular project (and calling it a “project” is a stretch; we’re talking 15 seconds with a pair of scissors). That’s an old Zara t-shirt that she distressed herself, and now it’s amazing.
So, because #twinsies, we decided to make me one too.
Here is what it entailed: I found a a tee that I never really wear and grabbed some scissors…
And stabbed the thing a few times. (Super complicated.)
…And now I love it. (And have already worn it.) (Twice.)
If you want to make your own distressed t-shirt, a few little tips:
- Pick a shirt that’s already nice and thin – if you can see light coming through it when you hold it up to a lamp, you’re on the right track.
- Keep the holes small (use a small pair of scissors) – they’ll get bigger over time, as you wash the shirt.
- Keep the holes around the center of the chest area to a minimum (especially if it’s a v-neck) – you want a little bareness, but let’s keep it PG-13.
- Don’t forget the bottom and back of the shirt, especially the backs of the shoulders.
- Err on the side of fewer holes just because you can always add more, but remember you’ll need a certain amount of distressing to make it look deliberate rather than like…well, like you’re wearing a shirt with a couple of holes in it.
