How To Work With A Tailor

Most people wear clothes that fit worse than they need to, because alteration is treated as a repair rather than as a normal part of buying clothes. A good tailor is among the more useful relationships available in a city like New York.

What can and cannot be changed

Straightforward: shortening or lengthening sleeves and trousers, taking in a waist, adjusting a jacket's sides, tapering a leg, moving buttons.

Possible with more work and cost: shortening a jacket, adjusting a collar that stands away from the neck, narrowing shoulders slightly, letting out seams where the cloth allows.

Not worth attempting: substantially changing shoulder width, enlarging a garment with no seam allowance, or reshaping something fundamentally the wrong size.

Bring the right things

Come wearing the shoes you will wear with the trousers, and the shirt you will wear under the jacket. Trouser length is meaningless without the correct shoes, and this is the most common reason a result disappoints.

Say what you want, not what is wrong

Describing the outcome — you want the trouser to break lightly on the shoe, you want the jacket closer through the waist without pulling at the button — is more useful than pointing at a problem.

It is also entirely reasonable to ask what the tailor would do. Experienced tailors see things you do not, particularly about posture, which affects how a jacket hangs more than most people realize.

Expect a fitting

Anything beyond the simplest hem should involve trying the garment on with the work pinned. A shop that measures at the counter and returns a finished garment is doing something different from tailoring.

Cost and sequence

Alterations on a well-made garment you already own frequently return more than a new purchase. If money is limited, alter what you have before buying more.

And go once with something inexpensive before entrusting anything you care about. It tells you how they work and how they listen.