Fast Fridays: Get Your Favorite Clothing Tailored & How to Find a Good Tailor

In the last year, my body has changed quite a bit. I don’t like to say that I’ve “lost weight”, because it’s not really true. Through weight training, I actually haven’t lost much weight at all (maybe a pound or two), but I have slimmed down a size or two. This is definitely a good thing, I think: I feel fitter; I eat better; I’m stronger. But it does create a little bit of a dilemma when it comes to my clothing collection. I love clothes, and there are some pieces in my collection that don’t simply have sentimental value, but are in fact, beautiful works of art, in and of themselves. To me, it’s important that you get your clothing tailored if they no longer fit correctly, because ill-fitting clothing makes you look messy and less physically fit.

Once you’v accepted that the only way to keep your favorite duds is to have them tailored to your new body, the next thing is to find a tailor. How does one do it?

Ten years before my grandmother passed away, I would have simply asked her to adjust them for me. As a professional seamstress, she had an incredible way with clothing, making things fit like magic, with a kind of art that made it difficult to tell if she had done anything at all. Without her, I have to rely on the magic of tailors who have skills like hers. In New York, there is no shortage of tailors, but it can be difficult to find one whose work you can trust.

Back in college, I relied on New York Magazine’s recommended list of tailors, but if you’re nowhere near one of these guys, here are some tips for finding a good tailor: ask your local boutiques or suit stores (they will often have relationships with tailors in the area–if they don’t have their own–who they can recommend); at the tailor’s, explain what it is you want done and then wait for questions (a good tailor will want to make sure to ask you specifics like what height heels you wear with your pants or whether you want a cuff); if you’re not sure what you want, make sure to ask for advice at the tailor’s (a good tailor will have opinions based on the cut of the garment and your body; he or she will have some specific advice); be sure that you have to put on the clothing item for the tailor to look at and mark while it’s on your body (if they don’t make you put it on…it’s a bad sign).

Any additional advice? Share your thoughts.