Zafira Ahmed 4/22/20 Zafira Ahmed 4/22/20

The White Shirt Edit | Zafira

Hey!

So it’s been a little bit of a while since I’ve posted anything but I really wanted to take this whole isolation situation as an opportunity to sort out my site and so I did and here I am on this lovely new layout!

It’s also been a chance for me to figure out what sort of things I want to actually post on here and one of my favourite things to do is talk about clothes. I think the best place to start with all of that is with the basics and nothing is more basic and simple than a white shirt. A staple in not only a man’s life but a woman’s too.

I think a white shirt will always come across with some level of formality. It’s something you’d consider wearing to interviews or to work but for me, it’s become a such a necessity in my everyday wardrobe.

Here are 3 of my absolute favourite white shirts that I’ve been wearing religiously or were before we were all put in isolation (sometimes i still wear them around the house sometimes to make myself feel alive):

a good old tailored, well fitted white shirt

We have to start with one of the most versatile items in not only my wardrobe but everybody else’s too. A simple, well fitted, tailored, body hugging crisp white shirt. My shirts never look crisp mainly because I like the whole slouchy look or at least that’s what I tell people when in actual fact I just hate ironing shirts.

This is just a plain white Vivienne Westwood shirt that I was incredibly lucky to find sitting in TK Maxx one day and was one of the best purchases I could have made and was honestly quite the steal.

When it comes to styling this shirt, your options are truly endless. Here I’m wearing them with my flared jeans from the Gap for a more casual look but you could wear this shirt with any bottom combination. Whether that’s a pair of flowy culottes, a midi skirt or even a mini skirt. But my favourite thing to do with this shirt has to be pairing it with dresses or jumpsuits as an undershirt. Anything with a spaghetti strap is your best friend because you can easily throw on a shirt under it for a more put together look.

One thing I’ve figured out whilst owning this beauty is that the key with making a shirt look more casual or formal has to do with how many buttons you do up. The more buttons you do up, the more formal you’ll look and vice versa. So for a smarter look I’ll usually stick with one button undone like I’ve done in the photographs, but for a more casual look I’ll undo a few more and throw on a black vest underneath.

You buy this here but I definitely recommend having a wander around TK Maxx when the world’s back to normal to save yourself like a £150.

2. a white organza puffy shirt

When I bought this I had no intention of wearing as much as I do. This shirt is more of on over-shirt/jacket sort of situation which I feel like is such an important addition to one’s wardrobe.

A shirt like this is the perfect way to dress up literally anything. In these photographs I have it over a basic velvet green jumpsuit and it’s instantly turned something plain and casual into an outfit that looks like I’ve put a lot of effort into. I love doing a little tie knot with this shirt because I got in a size bigger than my usual so I could get extra puffiness in my sleeves and have a looser fit too.

I love wearing this dress over plain white cotton dresses in the spring/summer and then over a turtleneck or sleeveless sweater in the winter. It’s definitely something in my wardrobe I can make work all year around.

You can buy this here.

3. a shirt with bigger sleeves than the last and just generally oversized

I don’t know how anyone can claim they have a semi decent wardrobe without at least one or two oversized white shirts you’ve most likely stolen from your dad’s wardrobe. This shirt kind of has that vibe which is what drew me to it but with a touch of femininity making it probably one of the best things you could ever buy.

I think this just might be the most worn thing in my entire wardrobe. The versatility of this shirt is insane. Insanely good.

It’s got that whole big sleeve situation going on which I am smitten with and on top of all that, it’s cropped which I’ve slowly become to love in not only shirts but in tops in general. One thing I hate when it comes to loose or oversized shirts is when you tuck them into your pants and they bunch up weirdly. It frustrates me in ways in cannot put into words but a with a cropped shirt like this, I will never have to suffer with that ever again.

I wear this in so many different ways. I wear it a lot with jeans because it’s just so so so easy to style. It’s become my go to ‘I’m late because I spent too long thinking about what I wanna wear’ outfit because of this.

I’m also a big fan of wearing it as overshirt/jacket like my organza shirt over dresses and jumpsuits and it always looks so effortlessly chic.

This sadly is pretty old and not available anymore but here’s a similar alternative.

Thanks for reading,

Zafira Ahmed 1/15/20 Zafira Ahmed 1/15/20

The Up-Cycle Project: The Perfect Errand Bag, the V Neck Dress of My Dreams and a Furry Surprise | Zafira

Hey!

So, it’s been a while. It’s so been so long in fact that we’ve rejoiced a new year and are already somehow halfway through January. I hope you all had the loveliest start to your new year and are slowly but surely getting out of that post-holiday slump.

Anyway, I made a few New Years resolutions and shared them on a post over on Instagram and one of them was to stop shopping and make more of my own clothes.

This is definitely one of those things that are easier said than done because making your own clothes requires many skills and a whole lot of practice. However, much like photography, I can 10000% say that clothes are a passion of mine and in order to understand the process a bit more, I have to start right from the very beginning.

My mum is the most talented tailor to have ever graced this Earth. She’s made me the curtains in my room, quilts and a bunch of clothes so I’m taking a few tips and tricks from her and obviously, some handy dandy YouTube tutorials to educate myself on my new found hobby.

What is up-cycling you may ask? Up-cycling is where you take products and turn them into something else. I know that a lot of vintage/thrift stores do this such as Cow and Blue Rinse so I wanted to see for myself what sorts of things I could make out of neglected clothes.

V Neck Black Dress

I think we should probably start with my absolute favourite thing in my wardrobe right now which is this black v neck dress.

You’re either 1, too focused on my amazing top underneath to care or 2, asking why this boring old thing is my favourite out of all the contents of my wardrobe. This is top stunning, I dream about it every night and I will be wearing this every day for the rest of my life but I’m planning to do a whole other post about this top and some more stuff very soon!

So back to the dress, I think something like this is fundamental in a person’s wardrobe. Especially if you’re trying to be a bit more conscious about stopping shopping. A dress like this can be worn and styled in so many different ways. I get incredibly excited thinking about the endless possibilities.

I thought this would be a lot more difficult to make but it really wasn’t. I began by sketching out my V neck on the front and back. I did make the V a lot deeper in the back so measuring all of that and making sure it was somewhat even was a little bit of a challenge since numbers and I do not get along. I made the dress slightly shorter by decreasing material from what is now the straps of the dress and then finally hemmed all the raw edges.

You can see here that I’ve styled it with this top with big sleeves which is basically a piece of art (again, I’ll get into everything about this beauty in another post) but I would wear this with pretty much anything you can put on the top half of your body. A plain white tee, a turtleneck, a blouse, a white shirt, like I said, endless possibilities.