Someone’s Finally Doing it Right: Masculine Shirts for Women

Alex’s Team Pick:

Masculine shirts for women? Yes please.
I am excited about this Indiegogo campaign and support it because Anna Kunz, the very driven creator of this endeavor, is basically doing what I would do if I had the resources, time, or even remotely the amount of motivation that she does: masculine clothes that are made to fit women’s bodies.

kreuzbach10

What a concept! Actually, one that I’ve been griping about for years literally every time I walk into a clothing store.

“Our shirts are designed to be straight up what you’d expect to find in the men’s department: Primary colours, geometric patterns, no frills.
However, unlike shirts in the men’s department, Kreuzbach10 shirts are cut to fit female bodies. We know that women’s shoulders, chests, waists and hips are in different ratios to men, but furthermore in different ratios to each other. That’s why we have developed our core 3 cuts that cater to different body shapes and we hope to expand to more cuts the brand grows. We’re clear about which shirt is which cut, so if you buy one that fits you like a glove, its easy to find more that will make you look just as hot.”

If you’ve been waiting for someone to come along and provide us with some real menswear options, then Anna Kunz and her line, Kreuzbach10, certainly deserve the funds to get this done. It’s something to really get excited about – she’s clearly got the right idea, as her project has already been fully funded! But the campaign is ongoing for a few more days, which means that  you can still grab yourself one of those cute bowties or even a shirt for supporting.

Here’s the Indiegogo video pitch for the project:

Find the campaign on Indiegogo – Kreuzbach10: Masculine shirts for Women.

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Alex

Cofounder and Design Director of Autostraddle. Professional web/graphic designer. Whiskey enthusiast. Drumming hobbyist. A past speaker at the 2010 BlogHer Conference ("Good Blog Design: The Role of Layout in an Online Medium"), 2013 Salon LGBTQ Conference ("Innovative Best Practices for Brand-Blogger Campaigns") and featured in the Los Angeles Edition of Refinery29's 30 Under 30 in 2013. Co-owns and manages Tully's Training, a dog training company in Los Angeles. Twitter: @a_ex Instagram: alexxxvegaaa

Alex has written 100 articles for us.

41 Comments

  2. This is everything I’ve been waiting for. Just picked up the shirt + bow-tie perk, so excited.

  5. I can’t wait to buy these. I just really need some new button-ups that can make it all the way over my breasts to the top button so I can wear it tucked into some skinny jeans with heels. Seriously I’ve been waiting a long time for this.

  6. I just hope that one day I’ll be able to wear a buttoned shirt where my boobs will fit perfectly without looking like the buttons on top of it are going to hurt someone’s eye at some point, or with a permanent unintentional peeking hole.

    Do these fix that? 0.o

  11. This is the second menswear-for-women type company I’ve seen promoted this week. It’s pretty refreshing to see. I didn’t want to detract from the indiegogo campaign so I’m not going to post the other one here.

  15. There was a Kickstarter campaign a few months ago for a line called Androgynous, with the same premise as this one. They’re working on getting out the perks right now, but I’m not sure if they’ve started producing their regular line yet. They have some really great button-ups.

  18. Why are Australian accents so cute? Do American accents ever sound equally cute to non-americans? I don’t think so…we just sound annoying and you guys think of george w bush every time we speak…bummer.

  19. This sounds wonderful but I’m not really digging the shirts they have so far? Idk, the buttons are on the wrong side and the sides are, well, curvy. I mean I love the idea and wish them good luck, I just wish it had been done differently.

    • Hey Lorna,
      We really appreciate constructive criticism, as we don’t pretend what we have right now will be perfect for everyone, so if you’d like to elaborate on the things that we could have done differently please do send me an email – anna@kreuzbach10.com
      If we don’t know whats not working, we can’t fix it, or develop a new cut that meets needs our current cuts don’t! :)

    • I feel you on this. I LOVE the concept, and believe that they will be hugely successful, but part of the draw to men’s clothing for MOC people is the cut. Shirts that hug curves and have darts are awesome, but also part of the reason I never wear women’s shirts. It’s beyond pattern and color choice.

      I’d love to see shirts cut like men’s, just narrower in the shoulder, shorter sleeves, or looser around the waist to accommodate hips. Maybe these shirts should be advertised as androgynous, or dandy. Something to denote the cut and style. I know I’d be super uncomfortable in a shirt that has buttons on the wrong side, hugged my hips or didn’t hide my chest.

      That said, I support what they are doing, and am not asking them to design my perfect shirt. Everyone has a target audience. As long as they stay true to their vision/goals, I think it’s a good thing.

      • Thanks so much PJ – appreciate your input!

        One of the next cuts we want to get developed next is a less curvy one designed to fit female bodied queers who wear binders (or generally try and completely conceal their bust) but still struggle with menswear – so less emphasis on bust and curves but designed to accommodate smaller shoulders and female hips.

        This is going to be a tough one to get right, so if you or anyone else reading this thinks that sounds like you, and want to be a part of the consultation process please send me an email with your email address and then over the next month or two I’ll send out a couple of emails advising a link to a short survey and seeing if anyone is interested in a skype interview.

        Button Issue-
        And also to clarify on the buttons. Our shirts will button on the right side like menswear, this was one of a handful factory errors in this first lot of samples that appear in the photos. I’ve since re-sampled at the factory to iron out small issues that are not really obvious in the photos. (normal for developing a tailored garment)
        We had a lot of feedback vouching for both ways with the buttons, but have decided to stick with our original plan to button on the right, as we consider that to be a ‘styling’ element of menswear that we should take on that would be consistent with other elements such as length etc that we have incorporated into the designs.

        Cheers,A

        • This sounds awesome!

          I usually wear sports bras, which don’t totally flatten my chest but kind of minimize it. So I don’t know if I would be at all useful for surveys/feedback during the process of trying to figure out the design on that one, but if you think it might be helpful then I can send you my email!

          • Hey Michelle!
            If you self-identify as thinking that kind of cut sounds like what you’d want to wear then I think you’d be super useful to consult with! :)

  21. I want all of these shirts in my life. I hope to god they’re ultimately able to sell them in Canada; I’d buy about a billion.

  22. Question: Are these going to be men’s shirts cut to fit women’s bodies? Or men’s shirts cut to fit society’s-standard-of-“beautiful”-skinny-as-fuck women’s bodies?

    Because honestly…I think the latter has been done to death.

    • Hey Anna,
      If you jump on our facebook page or indiegogo you can read a bit more about how our ‘shapes’ work, the idea with having different archetype patterns is that whether you are slim or curvy you can find something that works with your body. As well as sexy menswear style shirts, part of what we’re trying to achieve is shirts that will fit people with bigger busts or hips without them having to have the shirt baggy on the rest of their body.
      We aim to eventually have about a dozen ‘cuts’ but to start with we’ve got 3 (as thats all we could afford) one of which is designed to fit top heavy women (bust measurement taken from the next size up) then we have a hip heavy cut (hip measurement taken from the next size up) and lastly a shirt that is more evenly balanced with measurements.
      On Indiegogo we mention our intention to go into Plus Size as soon as we can afford it, and you can read more Q&A about that on our facebook page.

      Hope that helps clarify what we’re about. :)

      • Thanks for the response. That does help. I guess that maybe the model pics are a little deceiving as my first thought is that a shirt like that would never fit me, even in a large size. And besides, it seems to me girls with that figure don’t have much issue fitting into men’s shirts in the first place. I dunno, I guess I’m just really frustrated with the fashion industry’s tendency to cater only to those of us with a “slim” figure and then completely ignore the rest of the population. I’m sure you can understand the concern.

        • No worries – I completely get it. I come from a family with a lot of beautiful women that I’m close to – my mum, sisters, aunts, cousins – and not a single one of us is what you would call ‘slim’. I wouldn’t be welcome home for Christmas dinner if I created a label that excluded curvaceous women!!!!

          My personal experience has been that of being a curvy girl, struggling with my body image at times, and not always fitting into the clothes I want to wear.

          However from my work in the fashion industry I’ve also become passionately against excluding slim or skinny women and using language that implies that women who are naturally slim are not “real” women too. I’ve found that having a small number on your clothes tag doesn’t make you immune from body image issues, or mean things are always going to fit you well.

          In my view the biggest problem with a lot of mainstream fashion is ratios. We all have a unique shape, whether our bust or hips or belly is a little bit bigger or smaller in proportion to our other bits. For me its thighs – whether I’m 15kg (30lbs) heavier or lighter I can never find pants that fit my legs without gaping on my waist.

          My idea with the different cuts it that there are women of all sizes who are struggling with tailored garments because their ratios of shoulders-bust-waist-hips don’t mesh with the conventional one-ratio-fits-all that most brands offer in their sizing.

          You’re not the first person to say that our promotional images made you wonder about if the shirts would fit bigger women. We’ve taken that on board for next time. :)

          For me as a person, ‘beautiful’ and ‘sexy’ don’t have one size, one skin color, one hair type, one gender expression or have to be able-bodied. As the brand grows our imagery will express that.
          Bigger budget + more than 1 model = all kinds of sexy! :)

  23. So I’ve been crawling this site for years now and never have I found a time where I really wanted to join. Today I went shopping and saw a ridiculous amount of nice men’s wear which I quite obviously couldn’t fit into properly. When I saw this, I almost cried – I don’t cry easily – and thus decided it was time to finally join up. Thank you Autostraddle for everything you’ve shown me throughout the years, especially this ^^

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