A Tailor’s Advice on Fixing Your Trousers and Jeans

Recently at goop HQ, when water cooler kombucha tap talk turned to the topic of tailoring, one of my colleagues sheepishly admitted to never having been to a professional tailor before. I was surprised: This woman is someone I’d call a “fashion person”—the kind who kept a close eye on last year’s creative director musical chairs and pores over The RealReal’s annual Resale Report like it’s the Sunday edition of The Times. Then it hit me: If someone as fashion-obsessed as my colleague could find the process of getting her clothing tailored intimidating, then other people probably do, too.

So, in the hopes of demystifying the process, I sat down with Marina Interlandi—a veteran tailor with over 30 years of experience, the owner of First Class Tailors in Brentwood, and (full disclosure) my own tailor—to ask some candid questions. We decided to tackle the subject of pants, the logic being: Even someone who doesn’t get things tailored regularly is probably going to want to tailor a pair of pants at some point in their life. (That’s what first brought me to Interlandi, in fact.) Here, the highlights from our conversation.

A Q&A WITH MARINA INTERLANDI

How does one go about finding a good tailor?

People are going to Reddit, NextDoor, Google—but I like good old-fashioned word of mouth. Ask your friend, ask your sister, ask your neighbor who’s fixing their clothes. That’s how you find the good people.


Once you get a recommendation, the next step is to visit them. Bring in something that needs fixing and just ask some questions. Say, "Can you give me some suggestions? What do you think I should do?” and see what they say. A good tailor should be able to see a piece of clothing on the client, visualize what’s possible, and suggest what they think will look best. But if you go into somebody’s shop and start to ask questions and they look like they're doing you a favor by answering, that’s probably not the tailor for you.


There are always going to be good ones and bad ones. It's like finding a nail technician. You have to shop around and see who you gel with.

When hemming a pair of pants, do you have to choose one pair of shoes to wear with them—or is there an in-between hem length that works for both flats and heels?

The one hem that works very well is a classic crop, where it's right above your ankle. It's fantastic because you can do flats, you can do heels, you can do a tennis shoe, and it actually looks great with everything. Everything.


If you don’t like a crop, you could try having [the tailor] pin the pants for flats so that they’re as long as possible without dragging on the floor. Then switch to the heel so you can get a visual. If you like what you see, go with that length. If you don't like what you see, then you’ve got to make a hard choice.


And then the other thing I tell people is if the pants are on sale, you always buy two. I recently did that myself—I loved these jeans so much that I was like, I am doing it one more time. I waited till they went on a massive sale, and now I have one hemmed for flats and one hemmed for heels.

When shopping for vintage Levi’s, I find that there’s always something that’s not quite right. What is the one area that’s most challenging to alter—and what can be easily fixed?

The one thing that is absolutely not fixable is the front part, between the waistband and the crotch. When you get that bunching that happens from having excess fabric, that’s a deal breaker. Everything else can be fixed: The hip part can be taken in. The waist can be taken in, to perfection, so that they hug you. The hem can of course be taken up.

What is the maximum amount you can take in the waist?

Generally, the rule is two inches. In some cases, you can achieve another three quarters of an inch by taking in a bit from each side, but that then becomes a very expensive job. Most people will be like, "I don't want to do that." But can it be done? Yes.

Is there a way to hem trousers that gives you the flexibility to maybe change your mind later?

Absolutely—I call it the kids alteration. You can leave up to four inches inside pants without it looking weird so that they can be lengthened later.

What are the options for enlarging a pair of dress pants? Asking because I need to loosen a pair of tailored twill Celine pants that's ultrahigh-waisted.

So there are two options. First, do you want to keep the ultrahigh waist? Because one way to address it is to just remove the waistband. It’ll become mid-rise, which for a lot of people is the answer of all answers. It's very clean and it's no longer going to be tight because it doesn't come up all the way to here. Option two, if you want to keep the ultrahigh waist, we can expand the waistband. It's a much more detailed job—and could cost you between $75 and $95—but it absolutely is doable.

Is it okay to buy an imperfect garment knowing that it's imperfect?

As long as you can return it, I say buy it. Buy it, bring it to your tailor, and see what your options are. If you don’t hear good news, then you return it. But a lot of times people bring me things to fix and are like, "I’m not even sure this is possible." And then I tell them otherwise and they're like, "Oh my god, I'm so glad that I did buy it because I'm so happy with the end result.”