From Thrift to Perfect Fit
By Eliza Roberts Published Oct. 17, 2020
Consumers today are more sustainably conscious. More are looking to thrift. It’s a cheap, recyclable way of shopping for new clothes. When it comes to thrifting jeans, sometimes you can find jeans with the perfect fit, wash, or distress. However, more often than not, the size is not perfect.
If you are a thrifty person, you often may look online for DIY waistband and seat tailoring techniques. That's when you realize it is a more complicated procedure than those silly hacky video solutions. You don't want to look ridiculous. You want the right fit without the embarrassing looks, so you are stuck thinking “was this $10 Jean thrift just a waste?”
OK, you've smartly ruled out DIY and are considering a tailor. But, you then think about how the neighborhood shop who said they did denim butchered a pair of your favorites with trouser tacks and crooked skinny thread that didn't match the heavy stitching on your jeans.
Before you think about throwing them in the back of your closet, consider the concept of sending your jeans off to a professional denim tailor. No, I'm not talking about mass-market denim brands with in-store tailoring using 2 or 3 sewing machines. I mean a real denim pro, with all the heavy-duty factory equipment used to manufacture jeans from scratch without cutting corners.
I know the thought of getting a tailor involved for some cheap thrift jeans seems like a lot, but hear me out. You have purchased a pair of jeans that you like for $10. Sending your jeans to Williamsburg Garment Company will cost you $20-$35 to have your favorite thrifted jeans fit you perfectly. That’s roughly a $45 pair of jeans that fit your body perfectly and just so happen to be sustainably bought.
The way Williamsburg Garment Co. goes about tailoring ill-fitting jeans is unlike any other service we know. We open up the back seam at the seat of your jeans. Once we have opened up the seat we open a portion of the waistband at the connection seam. We then remove the back belt loop and save for later to be bar-tacked (not straight stitched) back on. After opening up the seam and splitting the waistband, we take-out your requested measurement. From there we reattached both sides of the seat with a flat felled double or triple needle chain-stitched seam – the same as used in factories. Once the waistband has been properly reattached, we bar-tack the belt loop back onto the jeans, hiding the only reminisce of any alteration.
