The Lemon Fool

Hi John,

It depends, sorry.

Depends on the actual fabric and the way the garment was initially made.

Depends on the amount of fabric you need removing as to whether the trouser leg, after shortening, will fit the same way in the unpicked cuff, or whether the trousers will have to be re-tapered to fit.

Your best bet is to get a quote from a seamstress who can look at them and let you know how much work will be involved.

Rune

Rune wrote:Hi John,

It depends, sorry.

Depends on the actual fabric and the way the garment was initially made.

Depends on the amount of fabric you need removing as to whether the trouser leg, after shortening, will fit the same way in the unpicked cuff, or whether the trousers will have to be re-tapered to fit.

Your best bet is to get a quote from a seamstress who can look at them and let you know how much work will be involved.

Rune

Thanks! They are slim fit designer trousers. I have not yet bought them but was thinking of grabbing them in the sale.

I think I will probably need to have them shortened by about 2 inches so I don't think they would need much in the way of tapering if anything at all.

Couple of other things to look out for :-

Check washing instructions, they may shrink anyway in the first wash.

Make sure you try them on first, sit down in them a few times. Some banded trousers and leggings 'stick' halfway up your legs when you sit down and you have to literally pull them back down to ankle level every time you get up which is beyond irritating.

Hope I've not put you off, do make sure they'll accept a return before you buy.

Good Luck!

There's a surprising amount that can go wrong when trousers are being altered. I had the leg length altered on a new suit which I was buying, and the seamstress got the front-to-back taper round the ankles pretty badly wrong so that they looked far too short. The reason, apparently, was due to a combination of the directional way the fabric stretched, and the unexpected way that the lower leg descended from the knee over my (ahem) unusually sturdy calf muscles.

Well, that's what John Lewis told me, anyway, and I'm not going to argue. They'd certainly done enough measuring during the fitting session - all in all, I'd doubt whether the whole enterprise had taken less than four hours of somebody's time, and even at minimum wage (plus JL's VAT and postage) that would have been enough to make the alteration barely economic.

BJ

Are you sure they need altering? You may be a fashion legend in your own lunchtime if you keep them a wee bit too long!

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news ... rs-8086880

I believe that Rishi may be able to help

V8