How we professionally repair belt loops & answers to why they break
By Maurice Malone Published April 8, 2022
Why do belt loops break?
Belt loops are one of the parts of pants and jeans that handle a lot of stress, often giving way to needing repair. Detached belt loops are usually accompanied by a tear in the fabric, most often on blue jeans on the yoke where there is only a single layer of fabric. As a side note, this is why we attach our belt loops to the yoke seam on our jeans.
The rear center and front loops usually break less often because they are sewn through multiple layers of fabric by bar tack. Through the pocket linings on the front side, and through the center flat-felled seam on the rear side.
How to repair them
Denim fabric is too tough for most sewing machines to handle. This is why denim specialists exist. When it comes to belt loop repairs, home machines have little to no chance of penetrating better-made denim jeans in multi-layered areas, especially heavyweight raw denim. Even a single needle industrial machine, the workhorse found in most tailoring shops cannot duplicate the strength or look of a bar tack, which is used in the actual production of jeans and pants.
The bar tack is made by a specialized machine that makes a tight zip-zag pattern with the strength to cleanly punch through multiple layers of the toughest fabrics. Generally, on blue jeans, you find bar tacks at the corners of rear pockets, other un-riveted pocket corners, edges of belt loops, supporting separation points at the fly, or sometimes around the area of outseam that supports the stress from the hips and front pockets.