In light of Sharan and Ket’s posts about the difficulties they were having with their tops (length and volume respectively), I am sharing this hack I came up with for shortening a shirt. It can also be used to reign in a voluminous shirt.

What I do is take the front shirt tails and wrap them around each other, then attach snap fasteners on each side to hold the tails in place. It creates a twist front shirt. You can still wear it undone and tucked in if you like. But not undone and untucked because the fasteners will show.

I like this look because it is neat. I am not a fan of tied shirts, or bows or tie belts. I even tuck in my shoelaces. I am quite the minimalist in this department

As I mentioned, it also shortens the top and reigns in volume. You can experiment with how much by pulling the shirt ties tighter or leaving them looser.

I think it works best with a shirt that has some body. Mine is a cotton linen mix. Might not work for silk. It does work for knit jersey. (I’ve done it.)

Sewing the snap fasteners is an easy hand sew but you might need to experiment with getting the position right. On my second attempt I decided to use 2 on each side for a neater look. It keeps the twist more firmly in place.

You will note also that I dyed my shirts and cut the collar off. I am a minimalist when it comes to collars too I looked at numerous YouTube videos on taking a collar off a shirt but in the end decided to just cut it off. That has worked absolutely fine.