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Regarding womens shirts, blouses and such. . do we really fear the dreaded "darts" on the front, sans boobies?

I don't think it's fear, as such, but just a realisation that the extra fabric in the front of most blouses (a) has no useful purpose on most guys and (b) doesn't look very good on. That said, there are ways to tame the problem and I have a number of blouses which I greatly enjoy including a couple in "exotic" fabrics (one in silk and another in satin).

My main mechanism to deal with the excess fabric is to simply hide it under a waistcoat. That does the job pretty well, and it's also possible to get a tailor to alter the darts to fit the (male) wearer. I have not tried the latter.

I generally aim for tops made for small busted women, as women, like men, come in all sorts of configurations. Stretchy fabric also helps, in that you can get a snug fitting shirt but be advised it will show every fold of your skin.

Sometimes gotta take the bad with the good.

Sometimes you can also find fashionable tops specifically designed for mastectomy patients, who have exactly the same problem we do -- no tracts of land to reveal with an open or voluminous bodice.

I've managed to find 4 womens tops in second hand stores without darts that I wear out and about. I've looked and looked for new ones made the same way, but haven't succeeded yet. Usually you can zoom in on web pages to see if the one you're interested in has darts. But sometimes you can't. I really wish that the descriptions would tell you.

Gordon wrote:I've managed to find 4 womens tops in second hand stores without darts that I wear out and about. I've looked and looked for new ones made the same way, but haven't succeeded yet. Usually you can zoom in on web pages to see if the one you're interested in has darts. But sometimes you can't. I really wish that the descriptions would tell you.

I have close to two dozen woman's shirts/blouses from Lands' End (I'm generally happy with their quality and the fit is consistent from piece to piece). There was a time when I though their definition of blouse was a top with darts, but that turned out not to be true. Then I thought blouse didn't button all the way to the collar. But that wasn't true either. Finally I ended up just reading the description carefully, sometimes they mention darts. Also, as Gordon said, I zoom up on the photo to check. If the shirt/blouse comes in several colors, zoom on all of them - sometimes the darts are more visible on one color. I finally ended up just wearing if they have darts or not. I have small breasts, so the darts actually make the fit better.

The practical definition of a blouse is essentially a shirt without tails (or with vestigial tails) -- and it's not solely the province of women. If memory serves, the male shirt-like portion of the US Naval uniform is called a blouse, at least for dress uniform.

What's in a name, after all?

I have a number of blouses with darts and they don't seem to create any sort of appearance problem.

On a few of my dresses, the darts create a somewhat unsightly bunching of the fabric, however, having the darts taken out of my black sheath was absurdly expensive (the tailoring cost more than the dress).

The longitudinal darts on the floral fit and flare dress that got me onto the newspaper's style page caused the whole bodice to bunch up when I stood up. To avoid having to tug it down every time I stood up I simply used my seamripper to take the dart out. Problem solved. I'm thinking of doing the same thing to my J. Crew Valentine's dress. My hesitation comes from it having a definite seam attaching the bodice to the skirt, so my alteration wouldn't necessarily let the dress slide down on me as it does on the other dress.

I have mixed feelings about darts. I have had a couple of exercise jackets from Old navy that have a dart style, and no one has noticed.

I could certainly stand to loose a few pounds and most of it is in my gut, but presents as boobs too. AS such some fit well, and others make me look like the proverbial beachball. I would add that I have been underdressing regularly since about 1980 with no attempt to go any further. About two years ago, I started buying and wearing womens jeans and sneakers without garnering unwanted attention.

Trying to find ones "outer style" is a challenge, albeit an interesting one. Time will tell!

Darts are found in the waist band of women's garments and can be a real problem to work around in alterations !

As for shirts and blouses the darts are not so much noticeable in prints plaids and dark solid colors - it is the sheer
and white light pastels that show them the best. The narrower the waist relative to the bust/chest will emphasize
the custom molding and form fit around the body. And darts here are also a problem with alterations. There are two
forms of darts - one is the vertical usually centered over the bra cups and the other the horizontal one centered
off the bra cup migrating to the seam edge from arm hole (pit) to the hem line. A good way to hide these bust darts
is under pockets. For men the darts are not all that worthless - for a trim athletic frame they can useful for setting
off the 6-pak waist - but that sure as heck is not going to work on me - I have a different sort of 6-pak in mind ! LOL !