Clothing alterations in Bangtao, Phuket

What we alter

Anything with seams, in practice. The common work is below, and none of it requires the garment to have been made here.

• Trousers and jeans — hems, waist, seat, leg taper, and cuffs added or removed. Hemming is the most requested alteration of all, on trousers, jeans and skirts alike.
• Jackets and blazers — body taken in, length shortened, sleeves adjusted at the cuff or from the shoulder, collar corrected where it stands away from the neck.
• Suits — the same as jackets and trousers, done together so the two pieces still read as one garment afterwards.
• Shirts — body taken in at the sides, sleeves shortened, cuffs adjusted, collar taken in a little.
• Dresses — hems, bust and waist shaping, straps, zips, and taking in through the body.
• Resizing after weight change, in either direction, limited by how much cloth is folded inside the seams.
• Repairs — linings, zips, split seams, and reweaving small damage where the cloth allows.
• Restyling — turning something you no longer wear into something you would, where the cloth is good and the shape is not.

What can and cannot be done

One rule governs all of it: a garment alters on a seam, and only by the cloth folded inside that seam. A tailor cannot add cloth that is not there and cannot move a line the garment is built around.

You can check before you travel. Turn the garment inside out and look at the vertical seams: the strip of cloth beyond the stitching is what there is to work with. A thin trimmed edge means the answer to "can this be let out" is probably no, whoever you ask. The rule and its limits are set out at length in what can be altered on a suit.

It is also worth knowing when not to bother. If the shoulders do not fit, if the cloth is worn at the seat or elbow, or if three or more major changes are needed, the cost stacks toward the price of something cut for you and the result is still a compromise. We will say so rather than take the work.

How long it takes

Most alterations are finished within the same week, and simple work — a hem, a waist, a sleeve at the cuff — is often quicker than that. What decides it is the queue and the complexity rather than the garment.

Anything requiring the garment to be partly dismantled, such as sleeves from the shoulder or a jacket body reshaped along with a trouser, needs longer and usually needs you back once to check it before finishing. Bring the shoes you wear with the garment if length is involved, because a hem marked against the wrong heel height is a second appointment. Tell us your dates when you drop it off and we will say plainly whether the work fits inside them.