On What Not to Wear, Stacey and Clinton are always telling their contestants to find a good tailor and use his/her services often, not just for hemming dresses/pants, but for stuff like making sleeves narrower or shorter, fixing jeans so they don’t gap in the back. shortening and even changing the hemline shape of shirts that you wear untucked. Also fixing necklines, where the shoulder of the garment hits you, adding/removing cuffs on pants, and a myriad of other things that it would never occur to me. I’ve pretty much always been an off-the-rack shopper, and I feel like I’m missing out.
Does anyone avail themselves of tailoring to this extent?
If you do, what, in general, are the costs in your area? I’m guessing the initial cost of the garment is a consideration, but heck, if you find a jacket on sale (or blouse, or jeans, or anything) that you absolutely LOVE, I can see spending the price of the garment to make it look fabulous on you.
Do you go into the tailor and say this is what I want done, or do you put the garment on and say, “I love this, but it looks weird on me, can you fix it?” Or how does it work exactly?
Do you have a tailor that you love-- tell me about him/her.
No, on the rare occasions when I feel like having a piece of clothing altered, I do it myself.
But I think, if you are interested, absolutely go in with the shirt and say “it looks terrible, can you fix it.” After all, if you already know what the problem is, you’re halfway there to knowing how to fix it yourself!
Not often but if looking good is really important I have no choice, dress clothes just don’t look right on my because of short stocky legs. A good tailor can make my legs appear a few inches longer.
What kind of things do you have done? Are you taking your pre-loss things in and having them altered? I’m really a total newbie at the whole tailoring thing.
Not counting the weight-loss alterations, I use her to shorten sleeves, shorten the length of pants, that sort of thing. I sometimes buy my suits custom, but I use her to alter any suits I buy off the rack. I also got her to slim the legs on a bunch of pants recently, as the style has trended in that direction lately.
For the new slimmer me, she alters the waist and the seat of my pants, as well as the size of my suit jackets. She can do anything, really.
Yes, it does help. I love that you do this! It seems so practical and civilized. How did you find this person? Also, in general (ballpark), what do you pay for, say, altering pant legs to make them slimmer?
I used the tailor often when I was working; as a retiree I don’t care as much I guess and I tend to wear t-shirt and jeans most of the time. When I did use a tailor my most common alteration was trousers. It began when I shopped at Jos. A Banks (which had women’s clothes those days; I don’t think they do now) and could not get pants to fit; one size was too small and the other too large. The tailor came out, looking like a cliche with his tape measure draped around his neck and his glasses on top of his head, and told the clerk to put me in the smaller size pants. Then he mumbled and muttered and made chalk marks. Finally I asked him how he could make these pants fit. Raise the waistband in the back he said, as if anyone should know that. Huh? I returned in a week and the pants fit perfectly. They had been too tight in the thighs and the ass before; after raising the waistband 1 1/2" in back, the distribution of fabric was changed and they fit perfectly. I thanked the tailor effusively and he said, just don’t gain any weight. Heh. If only I had followed THAT advice.
ETA My husband recently had some dress pants altered to fit his shape (no ass at all) and it cost I think $22. I thought it was quite reasonable. We found this tailor by driving by her house every day and seeing the giant “Alterations” sign.
Well, I can’t remember what she pays to shorten the length, but it’s pretty darn cheap. 10 or 15 dollars, maybe. When she alters the guage of my pant legs, it’s $40. It’s totally worth it if you’re talking about a nice pair of slacks, or even a higher-end pair of khakis/jeans.
I think she was my wife’s tailer when we met. I’ve also used a different guy near here who does a lot of work for one of the shops I buy from. He’s almost a little better, and I may start using him more often. I just have some loyalty to the other tailor after all these years.
No, not really. I just find it’s better to find a brand that works with your shape and stick with it, rather than buying things willy nilly and praying a tailor can fix it. If something looked “terrible” on you in the store, why did you buy it???
The second problem is that once you’ve altered the clothes to fit, there is basically zero wiggle room for weight loss/gain. I have custom-made shirts, and they fit as badly – or worse – then off the rack as soon as I gain 5 lbs. So what’s the fucking point of paying $125 for a shirt then? Am I supposed to have a closet full in 5 lb increments? A woman can gain 5 lbs in water in a 24 hr period. it’s a crapshoot whether those shirts fit on any given day.
Women’s tailoring seems to be more outrageously priced than men’s. People here are saying their tailor will change the whole shape of pants for $40 - I was once charged $30 to hem a pair of pants I had already measured and pinned.
I recently lost 10 lbs, and have to shelve half my suits as they are falling off of me. The good news is, I got to unshelve the other half of my suits, because they fit me now.
What it means to “fit” is different for men and women, and men’s clothes can have much greater ease and still be considered “fitted” at the professional level. Women’s clothing is much more snug on the body. Which makes it both more expensive to tailor, and easier to become mis-fitted at the drop of a hat.
There’s loads of places that offer to make semi-custom men’s suits for a reasonable price. Few will even consider making a women’s suit.
I’m just not sure what any of this has to do with tailoring clothes. One usually goes to a tailor to make things fit better. I can’t really get behind the notion that it all looks terible anyway, so we shouldn’t bother.
While the OP asked if women use tailoring services (AFAIK, all clients on “What not to Wear” are women), virtually every person who has answered in the affirmative is a man. Tailoring is simply more cost effective for men - it’s cheaper to begin with and more likely to yield a positive result because men’s clothes are worn with a lot of ease.
When closer-fitting women’s clothes are involved, you’re better off looking for a new and better fitting off the rack suit or shirt, than trying to customize one that kinda fits, beyond needing to shorten something on the edge of the garment which doesn’t affect the way it sits on your body. You’re going to spend more than the clothing is worth before it looks any good at all, and even then, maybe not.
Like a seemingly simple v-neck dress… the torso was too long. Cost $95 to alter (the dress itself cost $75) and it never looked right in the end. You can’t just shorten the straps - that will put the boob shaping (princess seams or darts) in the wrong place, and taking out the darts/Pseams leaves visible stitching lines that now need to be hidden somehow. I wore it once then gave it to charity. Good use of $165. I no longer even buy a dress which is too long anywhere but the hem. Not gonna work out.
Since I’m overweight, a recent tracksuit purchase in large size turned out to be too long in the leg for me.
The lady in the shop understood what I wanted and ‘took up the hem’.
(Now I have to avoid exercising, otherwise my waist will be too small :eek: )
I do get simple alterations done. It’s never been expensive, and has kept a lot of things in my closet that would otherwise shudder have to be replaced.
I’ve also ordered some custom-made jeans from makeyourownjeans.com. They cost $67 dollars altogether, including the shipping. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that I could find off-the-rack jeans that fit me, but this way I get the color and style I want without having to go store to store, trying on a bunch of different brands with different meaningless size numbers. I don’t intend to grow any more, so these jeans should last a long time.
I’d also point out, that Dopers agree, you cannot completely size down a men’s suit either and get a satisfactory result:
The difference is for men there are more available fixes that don’t involve completely remaking the garment. If a man’s shirt is a bit too roomy, you can take in the side seams. You cannot simply take in side seams on a woman’s shirt. Why? because boobs. Taking in the side seams will cause the breast shaping to point in a non boobular direction. This, I assure you, will not be an improvement over a shirt that’s slightly boxy.
Actually I am a woman and as mentioned above I did have more intricate tailoring done. However, it is true that there’s not as much room for not-quite-fitting for women as there is for men.
