Showing Posts From

Tailoring

Dress Codes and Formalwear in Larger Sizes

Dress codes are instructions about the level of formality, not about a specific garment, and the words used rarely mean what a plain reading suggests. "Semi-formal" is dressier than "business casual", and "formal" in an invitation often means something more specific again. With structured clothing, the ambiguity matters more than usual, because a garment that is nearly right for the code is often harder to adapt than one that is clearly wrong. There is a second problem that anyone buying in larger sizes meets immediately: structured formalwear is the least forgiving category to grade. A jacket has to hold a line, and the pieces that hold it cannot simply be scaled. What the codes actually ask for The codes are conventional rather than legal, and they vary by country and by occasion, but the working meanings are reasonably stable.Business casual means a collared shirt or a fine knit, with tailored trousers or a skirt, and no tie required. A jacket is optional. Denim is usually out. Business formal means a suit, with a jacket and a matching lower half, and a tie for most situations. The jacket does the work. Semi-formal, in the evening, means a dark suit or a cocktail-length dress; for a man a tie and often a dark suit, for anyone a step below the black-tie level. Formal or black tie conventionally means a dinner jacket or an evening gown. A long gown is the safest reading of an evening formal invitation. White tie is the most specific code and the most restrictive: a tailcoat, a white bow tie, and full evening dress.Where an invitation lists two codes, treat the higher one as the safe reading. Where it lists one and gives an example, the example is the instruction. Why structured garments are graded least carefully A soft garment fits within a range, because the fabric can be stretched by the body and will settle. A structured garment fits within a much narrower range, because it is holding a shape rather than following one. Structured garments are also the most expensive to grade properly. A jacket has a canvas or interfacing inside, shoulder pads, a lining and a collar, and every one of those pieces has to be graded along with the outer shell. The dart positions, the position of the shoulder point and the relationship between the chest and the waist all have to be resolved separately for each size. The cheaper route is to grade the outer shell and leave the innards as they are, which is why a jacket can be the right size across the chest and still feel wrong: the shoulder pad is placed for a smaller frame, the dart points to the wrong place, or the collar sits away from the neck. This is not something you can fix by sizing up. The parts that carry the shape Knowing which internal pieces exist tells you what can and cannot be changed later. Canvas and interfacing. These give a jacket its roll and its front. A full canvas is stitched in by hand and follows the body closely. A fused front is glued, which is faster and cheaper and less forgiving of pressing and heat. Neither can easily be added or removed by a tailor. Shoulder pads. These set the shoulder line. Changing their size changes the whole proportion of the jacket, and it is one of the more involved alterations, because the sleeve head has to come out. Darts and seaming. The position of a bust dart or a princess seam decides where the shape is taken in and released. Moving a dart a small distance is a normal alteration; moving it a long way changes the balance of the front. The lining. A lined garment is easier to put on and off, and a lining that is too tight can make a jacket that fits feel small. A lining can often be let out on its own. Leave time and money for alterations It is reasonable to assume every structured garment will need at least one alteration. That is true of ready-to-wear generally, and more so where the range of sizes is thin. Time matters as much as money. Alterations on a jacket can take more than one fitting, and a tailor's queue is longest in the weeks before a formal season. If an event is three weeks away, the garment needed to be bought before the conversation started. For anything other than a hem, allow several weeks. Decide what is worth altering before you buy. Sleeve length, hem length, waist suppression and dart position are normal work. Shoulders, the collar and the overall chest balance are structural, and getting them wrong is a rebuild. If a garment needs the second category, it is the wrong garment. Buying, renting or having it made Each route suits a different situation. Buying outright makes sense when you expect to wear the garment more than once, when your size is comfortably within the range, and when you have time for a fitting. It gives you a garment that fits your body rather than a size band. Renting makes sense for a single occasion, particularly for a garment you would not otherwise wear again. The limitation is that the range is usually thinnest at the larger sizes, and the fit cannot be altered at all, since the garment has to go back. Having a garment made for you, whether by a tailor or a made-to-measure service, solves the grading problem directly, because the pattern is drafted to your measurements. The trade is time, cost, and the need for fittings. It is often the most reliable route for a formal garment that has to be exactly right. Accessories as a buffer Accessories can carry some of the adjustment that the garment cannot. A belt or braces can hold a trouser that is slightly loose at the waist, so long as the waistband itself is designed to take them. A waistcoat covers the point where a shirt meets a trouser and can disguise a waistband that sits imperfectly. A bow tie or a long tie can be adjusted freely, which matters when a collar is a little tight. A shawl or wrap over an evening dress solves an issue of coverage without changing the dress, and separates can be chosen to add or remove formality. Accessories are not a substitute for a garment that fits. They are a way of absorbing small mismatches that no alteration would be sensible to chase. When to walk away Walk away when the shoulders are wrong, when the collar stands off the neck, or when the chest balance is wrong, because none of those can be altered economically. Walk away when the garment is on final sale, because the alteration budget needs a return route behind it. And walk away when the time to the event is shorter than the time a tailor needs, because a rushed alteration is worse than a garment that was chosen a size out.

A sewing machine stitching a trouser hem

Hemming Trousers and Jeans When the Cut Is Wide

Shortening a wide-leg trouser is not the same job as shortening a straight one. When the leg is narrow, taking length off the bottom barely changes how it hangs. When the leg is wide, the hem is often the widest part of the leg opening, and cutting it away changes the silhouette, the balance and the way the fabric moves as you walk. Add the rise and the leg width that plus-size patterns commonly use, and the hem becomes a decision rather than an afterthought. The good news is that it is a decision you can make properly, in a fixed order, before any fabric is cut. Length is a relationship with your shoes Trouser length is not an absolute measurement. It is a relationship between the hem and the shoe, and it only exists once a shoe is on the foot. Put the shoes on before you pin anything, and choose the pair you will wear most often with that trouser. A wide leg that skims the floor in flat shoes will pool in heels, and a hem set for heels may trail in flats and fray. If you genuinely intend to wear two very different heel heights, then one pair of trousers cannot serve both without a compromise. As a working definition: a hem that just touches the top of the shoe, breaking slightly, is the most forgiving. A hem that clears the ground by a small margin is cleaner but less tolerant of a change of shoe. A hem that pools sits on the floor and gathers dust. The hem is usually not level Most tailored trousers, and many plus-size patterns, are cut with the hem edge slanted so that when the trouser is worn, the hem sits parallel to the floor. The back of the leg has to travel further over the seat and the calf, so if the hem were cut level in the flat pattern, the back hem would hang lower than the front once worn. This means you cannot measure a hem accurately with the trousers laid flat. The correct test is on the body, with the trousers on and the shoes on, checking the hem all the way round. A helpful trick is to stand on a hard floor and have someone mark the intended hem with pins while you stand still. If you are marking for yourself, use a mirror and check from the side as well as the front. If the hem measures level on the hanger but sits unevenly on the body, the problem is the slant, not the length. Why a wide leg behaves differently Two measurements govern how a wide leg falls. The first is the leg opening: the circumference of the hem. The second is the point where the leg is widest, which on a wide cut is often at or near the hem. Shortening the leg removes the part that flares, so the new opening at the cut line is narrower than the finished hem was. This is the effect most people are surprised by. Take a wide leg in and shorten it, and you can end up with something closer to a straight leg, or with a taper that fights the drape of the fabric. Whether that is acceptable depends on how the pattern was drawn. A well-drafted wide leg usually keeps the leg width nearly constant from the knee down, in which case the effect is small. A leg that flares towards the hem loses the flare. The second factor is the drop, the distance between the crotch seam and the waist, and the width of the thigh. A deep drop and a full thigh push fabric outward, and that outward push travels down the leg. It is one reason a wide leg that looks correct on a hanger can look quite different on a body. No hem can fix this; it can only be accounted for when choosing the cut. Three ways to finish a hem The finish is a functional choice, not only a visual one, and each one behaves differently on a wide leg.Original hem, kept. The existing hem is removed with some fabric above it, then reattached. This preserves the factory stitching, the fading at the edge of a denim hem, and the original shape of the opening. It only works if the amount being removed is not so large that the removed section would sit above the knee, and it is best on narrow-to-moderate hems. Blind hem, turned and stitched by machine. The raw edge is neatened, the hem allowance is turned up and secured with a stitch that is nearly invisible from the outside. On a wide leg this is often the cleanest result, because it distributes the hem weight evenly and does not draw the eye. Topstitched hem. The hem is turned and finished with a visible line of stitching, often in a contrast thread on denim. It is the most robust and the easiest to shorten again later, but the visible line changes the proportion of the leg and can read as heavy on a very wide cut.Whichever is chosen, the weight of a wide hem matters. A deep hem allowance on a heavy fabric holds the bottom of the leg straight and gives the drape its shape. Trimming the allowance away to save bulk can make a wide leg hang flatter and look thinner, which is usually the opposite of what was wanted. Measuring for a tailor If the work is going to someone else, the measurements you give decide the result more than the skill of the sewing. Prepare the following.The shoe you will wear with the trouser, so the length can be set with it on the foot. The finished length you want, measured on the body from the waistband to the intended hem, along the side seam. The finished length along the inside of the leg, from the crotch seam to the hem, which is the measurement a machinist may prefer to work from. The desired hem opening, in circumference, if you want to keep or alter the leg width. Whether a slanted hem exists and how much it should be, described in your own words rather than as a number. A note on whether you want the original hem preserved.A brief written down is worth more than a verbal one, because the person doing the work cannot see the body and the shoe in front of them. When to leave the hem alone Hemming is not always the right answer. A few situations are best left as they are.The trouser is only slightly long and pools by a small amount, which often disappears when the shoe is on. The cut is a deliberate flare or a curved hem, where shortening would remove the shape that makes it work. The fabric is a delicate knit with a finished edge that would be impossible to reproduce, and the existing hem is part of the design. Removing the length would take the leg above the knee, or move a detail such as a slit or a vent, which is a redesign rather than a hem.Where the trouser is right in every other respect and only the length is wrong, hemming is one of the most economical alterations available, because it touches nothing that carries the garment's balance. Where the length is wrong because the rise is wrong, no amount of hemming will help.

A close view of an elastic waistband with its stitching

Elastic Waistbands, and Where They Fail

An elastic waistband is a spring held inside a tube of fabric. It stretches under load, then returns to its resting length, and the whole of its behaviour follows from how well that return works and how the fabric around it is built. When a waistband rolls, folds, digs in or sags, the cause is almost always one of three things: the elastic itself, the channel it sits in, or the way the two are joined. That is useful to know because these are the failures you can see before buying and, sometimes, fix afterwards. A waistband is also one of the few parts of a garment that a home sewer or a tailor can replace completely, which makes it worth understanding rather than accepting. What the elastic is doing Elastic works by having a short resting length and a long stretched length. In a waistband it is fitted shorter than the finished opening, so the fabric is gathered and the waistband holds itself up by squeezing gently. The force it applies comes from two sources: how far it is stretched, and how stiff the material is for its width. A narrow length of very stiff elastic can pull as hard as a wide length of soft elastic, which is why the width alone tells you less than you might expect. Two properties decide how long the band survives. The first is stretch, how far it will extend before it stops returning. The second is recovery, how completely it comes back. Recovery is the one that matters in a waistband, because a band that has lost its recovery has lost the only thing it was there to do. Heat, repeated over-stretching and the chlorine in a swimming pool all reduce recovery. So does time: elastane, the fibre sold under several trade names, ages even in a drawer. Woven, knitted and clear elastic The types behave differently enough that the difference shows in the fit. Woven elastic is the firmest and the most stable. It is dense and unyielding, holds a flat shape well, and is the usual choice for a waistband that needs to stay put. It is also the least soft against the body. Knitted or braided elastic is softer and more flexible, and it curls more easily along its length. It is comfortable in light garments but recovers less firmly, so it tends to be the one that gives up first. Clear elastic is a thin, transparent tape, often used to stabilise a seam rather than to hold a waist. It is strong for its thickness and has little bulk, but it is prone to losing recovery and to being damaged by heat from an iron. Corded elastic has lengthwise threads that stop it stretching in one direction, which suits a casing where you want stretch around the body but not along the band. A folded-over elastic waistband, where the elastic is stitched directly to the fabric and turned, behaves differently again: it has no separate channel, so the elastic is fixed and cannot be replaced without unpicking the whole waist. Why a waistband rolls, folds or digs Rolling is a geometry problem. A narrow band under high tension tends to rotate so that its edge turns towards the body, because the fabric above and below pulls in opposite directions. A wider band, or an elastic with woven threads across its width, resists that rotation. This is why very narrow elastic waistbands on heavy skirts so often end up folded in half. Folding is often a casing problem. If the channel is much wider than the elastic, the elastic has room to twist inside it, and a twist becomes a fold. If the channel is much narrower, the elastic is compressed and cannot distribute tension evenly, so it bites in one place. Digging is a pressure problem. The same total force spread over a wide band is comfortable; over a narrow band it becomes a line. Adding a channel that distributes the load, or moving to a wider elastic, changes the sensation more than changing the tightness of the band does. Sagging is recovery loss. The elastic has aged, or the fabric around has stretched permanently, or both. A band that was fitted too tightly in the first place usually sags sooner, because it spent its whole life near its stretch limit. A channel you can rethread A waistband where the elastic sits in a casing and can be pulled out and replaced is worth choosing over one where it is stitched flat to the fabric. The difference is simple: one can be renewed, the other has to be rebuilt. You can often tell without opening the garment. A casing usually has a small stitched opening in a side seam or back seam, and the band feels loose inside the channel when you pinch it. A fixed elastic waistband feels as if fabric and elastic are one layer, and often shows a row of stitching through the middle. Drawstrings and what they carry A drawstring is a second fastening, not a substitute for elastic. Its job is to let you adjust the opening by hand, which is useful when the same garment is worn by different people, or when the fit changes. The load question is what the cord passes through. A cord in a channel with its own eyelets will take tension well. A cord merely threaded through a channel and knotted will work until the channel is stretched. And a cord that is decorative, sewn in place and unable to move, is not a fastening at all. Drawstrings attached to elastic should never be the only thing holding the garment up, because a cord tied tightly over an elastic waist just concentrates pressure in one spot. Repairing a band that has gone Replacing the elastic in a casing is one of the most straightforward alterations there is. Open the channel, pull the old elastic out, thread new elastic cut to the right length, overlap and stitch the ends firmly, then close the channel. Nothing structural is touched, and the garment loses no length. A fixed elastic waistband is a different proposition. Replacing it means separating the band from the garment, adding a new channel if the design allows, and reattaching. That is worth doing on a garment that is otherwise sound, and rarely worth doing on a cheap garment, because the fabric may be near the end of its life anyway. A band that has sagged because the fabric above it stretched is usually beyond saving. The fix would be to take in the seam, which changes the garment's shape rather than restoring it. Before you buySqueeze the band and feel whether the elastic moves freely inside its channel; that means it can be replaced. Look for a wide band rather than a narrow one, especially on anything heavy. Check the stitching line through the band; if it runs all the way through, the elastic is probably fixed. Note whether the garment is meant to be washed hot or worn in chlorinated water, both of which shorten the life of the elastic. Feel how much force the band applies when stretched; a band that fights back hard will be the first to give up.Choosing the construction deliberately, rather than accepting whatever the waistband happens to be, gives you a garment that can be kept rather than retired.

A sewing studio: a dress form with a tape measure around it beside a rail of finished garments

What a Tailor Can and Cannot Change in a Plus-Size Garment

Once you have accepted that ready-to-wear patterns are drafted for a body that is not necessarily yours, alterations stop looking like defeat and start looking like the final step of a purchase. The important thing is knowing which changes are routine and which are a rebuild, because the difference decides whether a garment is worth buying in the first place. The rule behind everything An alteration moves a seam or a fold. It does not add fabric where there is none, and it cannot change the shape the pattern was graded for. Two consequences follow. First, taking in is easy and letting out is often impossible: ready-to-wear seams usually have very little allowance, so a garment that is too small is finished. Second, anything involving the balance of a garment — the shoulder, the armscye, the bust point, the crotch curve — is not a simple adjustment, because moving it means re-cutting the parts around it. Easy, routine alterations These are the ones worth planning for when you buy.Hems. Trousers, skirts, sleeves and dresses can all be shortened. On a hem, a tailor can also rehang a garment that sits unevenly because of the body underneath it, which is a common issue on a curved figure and a real improvement in how the garment looks. Waistbands. Taking in the waist on a dress or a skirt, or adding a dart at the back waistband of a trouser, is routine. A waistband that gaps at the back while the hip fits is a classic sign of a grading mismatch, and this is the cheapest fix in the list. Straps and shoulder seams on a dress. Shortening a strap or lifting a shoulder seam slightly tends to fix necklines that sit too low, and it is straightforward when the garment is unlined. Buttons and closures. Moving a button, adding a hidden hook, or replacing a zip with a longer one to gain a little room is quick. Tapering and lengthening. Narrowing a wide trouser leg or taking in a sleeve that is too loose along its length is a matter of reshaping one seam. Shortening sleeves. Usually simple, but check the cuff: on a garment with a deep cuff or a placket, there may be no way to shorten it without losing the detail. Adding a lining or a facing. Where a fabric is thin, a tailor can sometimes add a half-slip of lining, which changes how the garment reads without altering the fit.Possible, but plan for it These take more work and are worth doing on a garment that is otherwise good.Moving a bust dart. Position can be adjusted within limits. Adding a dart where the pattern has none usually means a visible reconstruction, and it is not the right choice for a thin fabric. Taking in a dress through the side seams. Effective for a garment that fits at the bust and the hip but floats at the waist, but check first that the armhole is not affected; taking in a side seam high enough can tighten or distort the armhole. Adjusting a rise. A trouser rise can be lowered a little by taking in the waistband and reshaping the front, but it cannot be raised meaningfully. Raising a rise means adding fabric and moving the crotch curve. Tapering a crotch curve or adjusting the seat. Possible on a simple woven trouser with a generous seam allowance, but it is a fitter's job rather than a hemmer's, and it needs to be fitted on you. Taking in the back of a lined jacket. Best left to a tailor who works with tailoring, because the lining has to be re-hung afterwards.Genuinely difficult, or not worth itNarrowing or widening the shoulders. Changing shoulder width means re-cutting the sleeve head, and the sleeve will usually not fit the new armhole without being remade. This is the alteration most likely to look wrong afterwards. Raising an armhole. Too low an armscye is one of the most common grading problems in plus-size garments, and fixing it means rebuilding the bodice. Letting a garment out. Check the seam allowances before you hope for this. In most ready-to-wear there is barely a centimetre, and on a knit there may be none. Making a garment substantially larger. A tailor can add a panel or a gusset, but the result reads as a repair rather than a garment. Changing the bust point on a structured or lined garment. Possible in principle, expensive in practice. Bias-cut anything. Bias panels must be allowed to hang before the hem is finished, and the fabric moves when you work it. Expect to pay for patience.How to work with a tailor A few habits make the difference between an alteration that works and one you have to redo. Wear the garment first, with the shoes. Mark the length in the shoes you intend to wear, and mark sleeves with your arms in a natural position rather than held out. Bring your measurements, and a garment that fits you well. Comparing the two is the fastest way for a tailor to see where the problem is. Say what you want to be able to do. Raising your arms, sitting comfortably, or carrying a bag on one shoulder all change what a good fit means. A tailor cannot see your daily life. Ask what they would do, and what they would not. A good tailor will tell you when an alteration is not worth the money, and that answer is worth more than a cheap quote. Judging the cost An alteration is worth it when it is a small proportion of what the garment cost, and when the garment is otherwise well made — a decent fabric, seams that can be moved, and a colour you will keep wearing. It is not worth it when the garment is a thin knit that will not hold a new seam, or when the change is so structural that the alteration costs more than a replacement. The practical corollary: buy for the hip or the bust, keep the receipt data, and budget for the waist. Trousers that fit your seat and need a waistband taken in are a much better purchase than trousers that fit your waist and strain across the seat.