What a tailor can and cannot change

Two laws govern the pressing room

Cloth comes out easily and goes back almost never. Every seam carries a small reserve of fabric, the inlay, folded away when the garment was sewn, and that reserve is the entire letting out budget: once it is spent, the garment has reached its final size. Taking in has no such wall; the limit there is proportion, the point where pockets drift and darts land in the wrong place.

The second law is pricing. An alteration costs what it costs to unbuild. A trouser hem touches one seam and one press. A shoulder touches the sleeve, the collar, the canvas and the lining, which is why the quote reads like a second purchase.

Too small is the expensive direction.

Hems and sleeves are the easy money

Shortening trousers, skirts and jacket sleeves from the cuff is the daily bread of any competent shop: days, not weeks, priced like lunch rather than like the jacket. Two caveats. A sleeve with working buttonholes cannot come up from the cuff without destroying them, so the tailor works from the shoulder and the price climbs. And cloth remembers: a hem let back down can show the old crease, pressed and faded into the fabric, and on denim and worsted it rarely disappears. Buying jeans to hem? Measure the garment first, inseam included, so the tailor adjusts a known quantity.

The waist comes in, and barely goes out

Trousers and skirts take in at the centre back seam as routine work, and a jacket waist comes in through the side and back seams the same way. Going the other direction, the inlay is the whole story. Most ready to wear carries about an inch of let out at the waist, better tailoring sometimes more, cheap garments sometimes none at all, the allowance trimmed at the factory to save cloth. Open the waistband and look before you buy a garment you plan to let out. What you can see is what exists.

Shoulders and armholes are surgery

To move a shoulder seam or resize an armhole, the tailor detaches the sleeve, usually the collar, then recuts and rebuilds. It is real work, done for garments that deserve it, and it frequently costs more than the garment did. So the fitting room rule: buy jackets and coats for the shoulder, buy dresses for the shoulder and bust, and leave waist and length to the professionals. Everything below the shoulder is a conversation with a tailor. The shoulder is the part of the garment you are actually buying.

Where each garment can move

Jackets and coats

Sleeves, waist and back move freely. A collar can be lowered to close a gap at the neck, an old fix that rescues more jackets than any other. Length comes up only a little before the pockets sit too near the hem and the proportions go. Shoulders, as above.

Trousers

Hem, taper, waist and seat are all standard work. The rise is close to fixed: moving where the crotch sits means remaking the trouser, so if it hangs wrong in the fitting room it will hang wrong forever.

Dresses

Side seams and zips are routine, and a neckline can come up at the shoulder seam. Hems are routine until the hem carries the design, a lace edge, a border print, a bias curve; then shortening is redesigning. Beading or a print that runs across a seam will show any move made through it.

Knits

A woven garment is cut from cloth; a sweater is knitted to its shape, and most tailors will not recut a fully fashioned knit. The honest fix for knitwear that does not fit is the other size. Repair is a different trade and worth finding: darning and new cuffs can add years.

Leather adds one law of its own: every needle hole is permanent, so anything let out wears its old stitch line forever.

Questions to ask before you buy the garment

• How much inlay is in the seams and hem? Look inside the waistband yourself.
• Where would the garment come in, and do the pockets or darts move with it?
• Will the cloth show the old crease or stitch line if it is let down?
• What will the work cost against the price of the garment?
• Could the alteration be reversed by the next owner?

A shop that alters what it sells will answer all five without flinching. For pieces that deserve more than a hem, the journal keeps a note on designer alterations in Toronto.

Browse with the ceiling in mind

The tagged size is negotiable; the shoulder is not. Browse the Toronto catalog knowing which numbers a tailor can change, and treat anything within an inch of right as a candidate. Listings reflect real shelves, so what you see is what a store actually holds.