I never paid for clothes to be altered growing up. In my mind, tailoring was for fancy-suits or crazy expensive dresses. Clothes should fit without me needing to pay someone to fix them, right? Wrong. Let me explain.
I learned the difference shopping with my friend Mike. I watched him go from ill-fitting sweatshirt shirts and pants that dragged on the ground to <a href=”https: //sartorialhim.com/how-to-buy-a-suit-online/”>custom</a>-looking clothing with the help of an $87 visit to his tailor shop. Suddenly, I understood why some guys look like they spent hundreds on a shirt when they really spent $20.
Most guys are built differently than how most stores stock clothing. Mike’s six-foot-four, has actual shoulder muscles (unlike me) and legs for days. When he walked into any clothing store, there were exactly two options: pants and shirts that were too short or ones that fit in the waist but hung off his body everywhere else.
“Maybe I’ll just wear the pants without a shirt” he joked while we were shopping for his sisters wedding. We spent all of Saturday at Nordstrom letting him try on suit after suit. The jackets either fit perfectly in his chest but were cropped in the arms, or they covered everything and made him look 3 sizes too big.
“I’ll just wear the pants,” he said. “Yeah no, that’s not happening,” I replied. I didn’t want to pay $900 for a suit that didn’t fit him perfectly, but there had to be another option.
We settled on the suit that fit his shoulders (tailor Mr. Park, an elderly Korean man who worked out of a tiny shop in the West Loop, told me that was the most important place because you can’t alter shoulders) and had Mike stand on a box while he pinned the rest.
Mr. Park walked around him with needle-in-mouth precision, marking where the pants needed to hit, taking in the waist, and shortening sleeves.
Two weeks later Mike put that jacket back on and his face said it all. “Holy shit, I have a waist!” The jacket actually fit his torso instead of hanging like a tent. The pants hit his dress shoes perfectly instead of bunching around his ankles. His sleeves weren’t too long, showing just the right amount of shirt cuff. It was a completely different suit.
[youtube https: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZa9ADYjbN8]
Mike went to his sisters wedding wearing that jacket and his sister-in-law pulled me aside at one point. “What happened to Mike? He looks… intentional.” If that isn’t the compliment to make you realize alterations aren’t a luxury, I don’t know what is.
My grandfather got it. He was a butcher his whole life, didn’t make much money but could walk into a bar wearing a tee and jeans and look better than most guys spending way more than him. He understood that going to a store and picking out clothes was only half the battle. Making them fit you was step number two.
It seems like everyone has forgotten this step. Most guys I know grew up thinking if a shirt or pair of pants don’t fit…you just move on. But that logic is crazy once you learn how clothes are supposed to fit. They’re designed with a generic body in mind. Like someone who has no shoulder muscles and the waist of an NBA forward. Models even have their clothes altered before they step on set for photo shoots. The idea that anything should fit you perfectly off the rack is insane.
I didn’t know that until I was old and frustrated wearing clothes that didn’t fit me – wondering why I always looked sloppy compared to other guys. Then I realized they weren’t necessarily buying better clothes, they were just getting them altered.
So what should you get altered? I learned the hard way by spending way too much money. Like that time I had a vintage leather jacket “slimmed down” in college and ruined it. But along the way I figured out what alterations make the most difference and what you should stay away from.
The most important alteration for shirts is darting the back. Standard men’s shirts are cut straight down from the shoulder, which creates this huge flap of fabric when you tuck it in. It makes you look like a floating sauce boat wearing a shirt. Mr. Park calls it “the reverse muffin top” and hates when guys don’t get this altered. For about $20 they can take the excess fabric from the sides and create two darts in the back that make your shirt actually fit your body.
I seriously get every dress shirt I own darted in the back. My girlfriend was the first to notice when I started doing it. “Wow, your shirts actually fit you” she said. Ouch.
The sleeves on shirts are also important. Most guys have sleeves that are too long. It throws off your entire proportions and adds to that sloppy look, especially when you wear a jacket over them. Hemming those suckers up makes everything look better.
I learned this on jeans when I started getting my pant legs tailored. Most guys think they need to hem jeans to match their shoes. It doesn’t. Jeans should hit your shoe however the fuck you want them to. Get them hemmed to your desired length.
The other thing I always alter on jeans/pants is the rise if I’m getting gaping at my back waist. You know how your pants always fall down a little and you have to constantly tighten them? Get that fixed. Along with hemming, this was my favorite change I started making. My pants actually stayed put!
Taking the legs in on pants that are too baggy at the ankles is another game changer. Found this pair of dress pants in my dad’s donation pile. He was about to toss them because they were too ‘90s dad on him. Took them to Mr. Park and had him taper the legs. $25 later those pants were the favorite he wore all summer.
I could talk about pants all day, but let’s chat jackets. Jackets and blazers are where alterations really make your clothes look expensive. I won’t lie to you, the shoulders need to fit or else there is no fixing it. But other than that entire jacket can be altered to your liking.
Same rules as shirts apply here. Sleeves should always be hemmed so they end about a quarter inch above your shirt cuff. It blows my mind how many guys get this wrong.
Taking in the waist on a jacket is my favorite alteration. A well-tailored jacket that actually fits your waist looks like a custom suit. I picked up this navy blazer at a thrift store in Boston. Awesome looking Italian wool, but way too big on me. $75 in alterations later (shortened sleeves, took in the waist, fixed button stance) it turned into a $600 looking blazer that cost me $115.
Does it work with EVERYTHING? No. You don’t want to spend more on alterations than the jacket costs. Unless it’s something you really love. And don’t go to your local dry cleaners to get this done. The guy that just does alterations at the dry down the street doesn’t have the experience to reconstruct a garment like Mr. Park does.
Talking about Mr. Park brings me to my next point. Find a good tailor that you trust. It took me trying about 4 different tailors until I found Mr. Park and I swear by him. He looks like your uncle that works in the hardware shop in the back of his store. His “waiting room” is literally two fold up chairs. But guys drop clothes off for him all the time that come straight from Designers!
I didn’t realize it at the time, but he taught me how to spot a good tailor. The first step? Try them out with something small. See if they ask you how you wear your shirts. What shoes do you wear with them? Do you want break on your pants or not? A good tailor isn’t going to simply do what you ask, they will advise you on what looks best.
Don’t have high expectations when you find that tailor either. mine sat across from me, chewed me out if my clothes were dirty, and still sends me clothes right away when I drop them off. All of his customers are guys that been with him for years that he “trusts.” He even said to me once that I should just start handing clothes out to his customers because he knows they will do a good job.
I know it sounds weird, but once you start sending your clothes to be altered you’ll understand. Instead of throwing away clothes that don’t fit perfectly, you can easily alter them to fit your body. Pullover Oxford that was too big everywhere? $25 to tailor and now my favorite shirt. Want jeans to look & feel like they were made just for you? Get the thighs slimmed out!
Speaking of jeans, shopping is different when you alter clothes. That whole sales section at your favorite store? Gold mine when you know you can tailor stuff to fit you. Huge price drop on that designer jacket because it’s size large and comes down too far in the torso? Grab it if the shoulders fit, tailoring can fix the rest.
I see guys walk past clothes all the time that would look great on them if they just got altered. We’ve been conditioned to think clothing should fit when we buy it, but it’s completely untrue.
I challenge you to pick one item in your closet that you never wear because of bad fit. Maybe it’s a shirt that’s too boxy around your torso. Maybe it’s pants that are too long. Take that thing and have it properly altered. Spend $20-$30 to make it fit you like it was supposed to and watch it become one of your favorite items.
When Mr. Park retired last year he sat me down and told me, “Young people these days don’t understand clothes. They buy, they toss, they buy more. But you get it. You bring friends over. Let them learn. This is good.”
I think he’s on to something. If everyone started altering their clothes instead of pretending there is perfect-fitting clothes out there that fit us, we could all look better. Don’t take my word for it. Go pick one item and get it altered. You might just become that guy.
