Easy wins: save cash, get clothes that fit and reduce waste by tailoring

If, like me, you have a habit of buying clothes that don’t actually fit you but can’t resist trousers blessed with a wonderful pattern or a blazer with excellent buttons, you need a tailor. Or if, like me, you prefer to buy vintage or secondhand over modern fast fashion for environmental reasons, you need a tailor to make everyone else’s old clothes newly yours.

While tailoring might seem like an extravagance, it is a small outlay when compared to the financial and environmental costs of buying new clothes every time something no longer fits.

As a small woman with a penchant for trousers that once belonged to old men, I often need waists and hems brought in and up on treasures I find in op-shops. A friend of mine now swears by getting her clothes taken out after having gained weight during lockdown.

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And tailoring doesn’t require a trip to Savile Row (unless you’re a particularly fancy Guardian reader; if so, I doff my top hat to you). Most alteration shops are accessibly priced, with most changes falling somewhere under $50.

The most expensive alterations will involve specific fabrics, like silks, or dresses, particularly anything with a pleat. Your local shopping centres and suburbs will likely have a dry cleaner who will also offer an alteration service. Some big chains, like Uniqlo, offer an in-store alteration service if you go to their bigger shops.

It might take some trial and error to find a regular tailor you trust, but generally anyone can get a new hem right, so it is a place to start. Just go in with a clear idea of the result you want – a cinched waist, more room in the shoulders, a tapered leg – and they’ll do the rest.

The best tailor I have found so far was a lovely old Turkish man who ran a small dry cleaner in my previous suburb; no matter what I brought him, he would take it on and usually make even more ambitious suggestions for improvements to the fit, for which he’d never charge me more than $20.

There are other cheap ways to freshen up clothes, some that you may be able to do yourself. One is swapping out buttons: I like to buy interesting ones from vintage shops and sew them on with a coloured thread – another small change that can make a big difference, and turn an ignorable coat into an enviable one.

Tailoring has also made me fall in love with clothes again, which makes me wear those pieces more often and leaves me less inclined to buying others. And ladies? Tailors can even add pockets.