"Think Ronald McDonald, but make it FASHION"
As you all may well know, I love EVERYTHING McDonalds, especially vintage 1990’s McDonalds. I had so much fun doing my first McDonalds themed blog, playing around with some of my favorite pieces from my favorite catwalk collection…………………………. so I decided to do another.
I have had this vintage sewing pattern for an oversized shirt for years. I bought the pattern from Etsy planning on making a load of these shirts but for some reason never go round to making one, so I went and made a vintage McDonalds-themed uniform shirt using this pattern. There is nothing more iconic than golden yellow working with pillar box red. I get such a warm feeling when I see these two colours together. I really do long for the days when going to a McDonald’s restaurant was an event for any kid (or adult), the happy meal toys included the McDonald’s characters and the staff wore INCREDIBLE uniforms and not a dull grey version like they are today. Obviously, I was lucky enough to be able to see this side of McDonald’s and I used to get immensely excited when visiting the takeaway and this is what I will always think of McDonald’s as.
I naturally went for a retro-inspired uniform idea……………. or what I think of the idea haha. I wanted to get a yellow and white fine candy stripe polycotton A. because it is a dream to work with and B. has a fun yet work-like vibe about it. I found this fabric on eBay and was only around £9 a meter, which was good to know JUST in case I made a mistake and needed to order some more haha. I luckily ordered this fabric while eBay was offering a free £5 voucher and I also had some Nectar points to use so I whittled the price down quite nicely. I found the red polycotton fabric from when I made the M&M accessories so I thought I’d save some money and use it for this little project.
I have had this sewing pattern for around 4 years, although I have looked at the instructions many-a-time I had never used the pattern because the instructions looked pretty scary to follow. I finally bit the bullet and went for it. I was surprised at how easy the instructions were to follow. I would look at the pattern pieces when I was cutting them out and think “HOW THE HELL?”. I wasn’t sure if I was dreading certain parts of the shirt that I could have only have been pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to do and I was just putting my abilities down haha. I haven’t really created something from scratch in such a LOOOOONG time and I really did enjoy it, just taking my time and it really took me back to the one and only time I have actually made a shirt (first-year uni 2005/06) remembering the fun times of my youth haha. I went for the majority of the shirt being yellow then I went most of the shirt’s details in red. I did have to adjust a few of the pattern pieces to be able to get the details in a separate colour. My favorite part of the shirt has to be the sleeve cuffs. They look soooo cute because they are so small and tidy and the button placket coming up from the cuff would usually blend into the sleeve on most shirts but I LOVE the pop against the muted yellow cotton.
I am forever searching pre-loved sites for iconic pieces from past Moschino collections and I was lucky enough to bag this packet of chips bag for £170, which was an actual steal, from www.vestiairecollective.com. The bag is such an iconic piece from Jeremy Scott’s first collection with the brand in 2014 and I was incredibly lucky to have found this bag as it has not been used and still had all the plastic wrap on the hardware. I really cannot wait for lockdown 3.0 to be over and for this little beauty to have its first special outing. I have been desperate to include this in a photo shoot for a blog so I pretty much created this blog purely for this beauty of a bag! I had to feature the infamous sunglasses in this blog too, they cost the earth and still have not had a proper outing, so any chance they get to see the world they jump at it haha.
The pins attached to the pocket of the shirt I managed to find on eBay a few years back. They were supposedly worn by McDonalds staff but due to health and safety reasons, they discontinued them……… I mean I’d have been buzzing if one had fallen off into my chips LOL. The pins are of a burger-flipping tool, a drinks cup, packet of chips and I think they must have been given to the staff once they were trained on different parts of the job. I only have 5 so could you imagine how heavy your shirt would be if there were any more to get? On the other side is a vintage pin from 1994, I was lucky enough to get this as part of my birthday gift last year and have been DESPERATE to give it it’s first outing!