I’m a fat guy with big thighs – the friction caused by the rubbing of my thighs tends to wear out the crotches of my trousers fairly quickly. As a result, I have to replace all my trousers every few months. It’s extremely annoying and rather expensive. Any time I ask a tailor whether they can repair them, they say there’s no way to save them.
How can I save my trousers? Help!
I’m interested in this as well. I have the same problem. Too many squats and leg presses back in my football-playing days.
The only advice I can give is that some kinds of pants form holes fast, and some don’t. I try to stick with the reliable brands when possible. Conversely, I’ve gotten some pairs of “delicate” pants mended a few times if I like them enough and want to keep wearing them.
One thing I’d like to try is to get a twill patch sewn to the INSIDE of a new pair of pants’ crotch – but I haven’t as of yet.
A lot of dry-cleaners offer alteration service, and they can sew up the hole or patch it up inexpensively. Also, ask around and find the name of a good seamstress or tailor.
Bordelond - Thanks for the reply. What are the reliable brands you like? Please name names.
I wonder about the patch on the inside. How would that prevent the rubbing together of the outside of the pants?
Another fatso checking in…
I have the same problem. I usually have a lining put in the inside of new pants. It’s not a perfect solution, but it makes the pants last longer.
Zev Steinhardt
MODS: If me naming brands below is not allowed, please edit as required.
Before I name names, I’ll give you another piece of advice – if possible, try to own enough pairs of good, wearable pants that you can wear them only once every seven to ten days.
As for specific brands, I’m not sure what kind of pants you are looking for – blue-collar work pants, casual “Dockers” pants, or dress pants. I’ll just name my favorites:
Work pants – Dickies are virtually indestructable. Not only do the crotches not form holes, but these pants barely fade. When new, they are pretty stiff and kind of dorky looking, but after breaking them in, they can be worn as casuals if you aren’t fashion concious about the big Dickies tag on the back pocket (wish they’d lose that).
Casual pants – I’ve had good success with Savannes (sp?). Also, a surprising number of cheaper brands hold up well – experiment a little. I have a year-old pair of St. Johns Bay casual pants (JC Penney’s house brand) with only slightly thinning fabric around the crotch. Conversely, I have a pair of 6-month-old Dockers with a gaping hole down low. I’ve had consistent bad luck with Dockers and ruined crotches – but I like the pants otherwise, so usually I just keep getting them repaired.
Dress pants – I don’t wear these out usually. Don’t wear them enough.
It doesn’t, but it prevents a hole from forming. I guess you’d get a rough-looking patch of worn-out cloth in the crotch area, but no hole. I suppose a hole would eventually form, but a patch of tough fabric would delay it considerably.
…apologies if this double-posts…
I once bought a nice wool suit and the tailor sewed some kind of shiny, slippery cloth into the crotch to act as a friction reducer.
It was two “D” shaped pieces with the straight part of the “D” laying along the inseam. Worked like a charm.
You might be able to fake it with some sort of slippery boxer shorts.
Wear boxer briefs. I don’t know how it works, but for me it does. I used to wear out my pants all the time, then I switched from boxers to boxer briefs, as well as pants with a fuller cut.
This did two wonderful things…
It got rid of the pants wearing out thing, and also, and this is great, it also stopped me from ever developing that chaffing rash I would get from walking around a lot.
As such, I walked around a lot more and stuff, and lost some weight and so on.
Fat guys, boxer briefs are the answer to all your life’s troubles.
I started wearing boxer briefs about a year and a half ago, and it doesn’t seem to have helped much. Maybe I should be wearing even looser trousers, but once you get to my size, it’s hard to find even bigger sizes that aren’t fantastically expensive.
If I were to take my trousers to the dry cleaners to have the inserts put in, how would I describe what I want him to do? Unfortunately, in this area, it’s difficult to find a dry cleaner or tailer with whom it is easy to communicate in English. This isn’t usually a problem unless I have complex requests like this one. Maybe I should draw a picture.
If I may ask, acsenray … where exactly do you live?
If there is a true language barrier, perhaps you can find a buddy that speaks the language to go with you?
Uh … I live in the Washington, D.C., area. :rolleyes:
Sorry, didn’t mean to offend. When you said that you had a hard time finding a dry cleaner or tailor who spoke fluent English, I took your concern seriously. I thought maybe you lived in a good-sized border town like El Paso or Edinburgh, TX, or else maybe in Miami.
Being that you are in Washington, D.C., I’d suggest shopping around until you find a tailor/seamstress who you can be comfortable with. How about in the VA or MD suburbs? I have a close cousin that lives in a MD suburb of D.C., and the impression I get is that those 'burbs don’t have a lot of ethnic diversity.
In every area I’ve ever lived in, there’s always a few older women who make supplemental income by doing sewing work from their home. If you ask around, you can almost certainly turn one up, as the only advertisement these ladies get is word-of-mouth.
No, no, no, no offense taken. I rolled my eyes at the realisation that it might seem to be a bit ridiculous or hilarious to be complaining about not being able to communicate in English in Washington.
I live on the Virginia side, which is delightfully diverse, but it does sometimes result in a degree of inconvenience in cases like this. I’ll have to start visiting all the dry cleaners in the area to find one who’s easier to communicate with.
I have large thighs and a small waist and this has been a problem all my life. It is a pain in the ass to throw away a pair of perfectly good (except for the crotch) pair of 50- 80 pants.
1: Buy looser pants with pleats for extra thigh room
2: Savanne dress pants and Docker’s chinos are fairly resistant to crotch wipeout but will eventually die.
3: Realize there is nothing you can truly do other than get expensive, bushwacker style outdoor pants with thick super tough fabric which are not that fashionable.
Some pants have guarantees. I used to buy named brands from Sears for my chubby hubby and if they split got them replaced. Now that he can’t walk, it is not as much of an issue.
The sacrificial patches of fabric that are sewed into the crotches of dress pants are known as “crotch liners.”
Back when I had to wear a suit every day they really helped to extend the life of my suit pants. Eventually they would wear holes in them and have to be replaced, but that was a lot cheaper than buying a new suit.
So, ask your tailor or dry cleaner for “crotch liners.”
Wow I was intending to post the same question this morning!
Am I the only person who thought this thread was about yet another strange collection (and collector)?
Perhaps (no pun here) I’ve revealed too much…
Besides dry cleaners, I can think of two other types of businesses you can check out regarding ad-hoc alterations work.
One would be a women’s dress shop or a bridal shop. These places always have either in-house seamstresses or contacts with several at-home seamstresses. If they don’t take your pants in themselves, the employees of those shops can recommend some local seamstresses for you.
Another possibility is uniform shops – school uniforms, medical uniforms, or whatever. I used to work for a school uniform retailer, and we had in-house seamstresses. If a customer knew to ask, we were willing to sell alteration service as a stand-alone item (especially during the October-May slow season) and were thus willing to take in items for alteration even if they were not bought at the shop. Additionally, both of our seamstresses “moonlighted” by doing quite a bit of private sewing work after hours.
…
Thought of another one – many major department stores offer alteration services for clothing you buy there. It can’t hurt to ask if they’ll take any items you’ve bought elsewhere (or “received as a gift”).
Yet another one: are there any Men’s Wearhouse, S&K, or Casual Male Big & Tall, or other menswear shops in your area? Those would also be good resources to find seamstresses/tailors.
I keep thinking that a teflon spray might be the way to go for this problem. You know, reduce the friction and all that.
I live in the Washington D.C. area myself and being a “full-figured” gal, know only too well about crotch holes. What I do is to go to a fabric and sewing notions store and buy iron-on interfacing. This substance is used in sewing clothes but you could also use it for your trousers. You buy it in multiples of a yard, and cut it to fit. You might want to ask the sales people what would suit your purposes best. You could use one of your old trousers as a guide. Follow the directions on the package for applying the interfacing. I think this would be an easy, certainly cheaper solution. Let me know what you think.