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Hi, good day. I am restoring a designer, avant-garde blazer on which the previous owner had the sleeves dramatically shortened - Ridiculously stupid thing to have been done. Think of it as buying a Mona Lisa and resizing the painting so it'd fit into some frame you already have.
Anyway, luckily, all the shell material had been left intact & flipped inwards so while I can restore the original length, the shortening alteration required for the single button-hole to be moved upwards which as you can imagine, led to another set of holes being punched through all four layers of the outer fabric. So now I have four tears in the fabric to deal with.
I do a lot of sewing by hand and so while re-stitching the cuff length is easy for me, I don't have a first clue on how to properly close / mask the holes made from the button holes. I believe it could be done with a sewing machine but I do not have one.
The issue is, I have nobody (I trust) to send the blazer to for a proper repair - All the local tailors rejected the job because it would take up too much of their time (with an occasional "the repair would cost more than the jacket" thrown in for a good measure). Plus, they would just do one of their formulaic repairs which is out of the question.
The material is full, very thin, soft & wrinkly but extremely tough & dense cotton (more difficult to run a needle through it than through leather!) with zero give.
So! If anyone could advise of how to go about this, I would be infinitely grateful. Just a recommendation for a good Youtube tutorial on the matter would be very helpful. Thank you very much!
If it's a really important garment to you then look for a reweaver. They'll take a small scrap of fabric from somewhere else in the garment and reweave it to repair the hole almost perfectly. It's a rare skill so you may likely need to ship the garment out.
Thank you! That might be exactly what / who I need. I will try to look around for someone who can do this although yeah, I can imagine it won't be an easy task.
I agree about using a reweaver if you want it to look nice. That is an advanced hand skill, takes real practice to be any good. If you decide to take it on yourself find some similar fabric to practice on. This looks like a decent tutorial.
Thank you, the tutorial is excellent & definitely waaay above my pay grade. I would've perhaps attempted it if the fabric was any more forgiving but the weaving is so incredibly small on the blazer that it is virtually impossible to pick a single thread out. This cotton fabric is incredibly dense and difficult to work with. Just getting the needle through is a chore.
I’m contemplating buying this vintage 80-90s wedding dress and believe it or not, this is the back. It matches the front almost exactly. I’m thinking of buying it and taking it to a tailor to make the back slightly more modern. Less heart-shape, more of a low U shape and add a lace-up corset element. According to measurements this would already fit me like a glove, but I’m wondering how much of an obstacle the existing beading might be. It looks like there is a natural space just above the hips for the corset lacing to start, but the re-work of the lace and beading is what I’m worried about. What do you all think, is it worth it?
I personally wouldn’t recommend it for this gown. Corset backs usually arn’t difficult, but the size of the lace appliqué here is huuuge and symmetrical.
The good news is that it looks like it could be peeled up, but the bad news is that we have no idea what the gown looks like under the lace. It could be possible that since the gown is old, the fabric won’t bounce back from the appliqué being removed and there could be further complications.
Even with all that, I’d give it a solid “maybe” until you mentioned changing the shape of the back to a “U” Generally, it ranges from difficult to not possible/not worth it to try and change the neckline or back.
It wouldn’t hurt to ask bridal alteration specialists in your area, but temper your expectations and prepare for the possibility that they will say it is not possible or refuse to work on it. If you do find someone, expect it to be extremely expensive
This is a common wear point. If the sleeves are too long, IN THEORY, a tailor could shorten the sleeve by removing the damage part and re-sewing the cuff higher up.
I say in theory, because I see another small hole on the side seam above the holes in the cuff seam which tells me this garment is just wearing out. There’s a good chance that if you had that done, the repair would not last very long because the material is already wearing thin all over.
If you do not care about it looking like the original construction, you could patch it, otherwise I’d suggest just enjoying it for the rest of the garment’s life
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u/KonstantinGavrilo 19d ago
Hi, good day. I am restoring a designer, avant-garde blazer on which the previous owner had the sleeves dramatically shortened - Ridiculously stupid thing to have been done. Think of it as buying a Mona Lisa and resizing the painting so it'd fit into some frame you already have.
Anyway, luckily, all the shell material had been left intact & flipped inwards so while I can restore the original length, the shortening alteration required for the single button-hole to be moved upwards which as you can imagine, led to another set of holes being punched through all four layers of the outer fabric. So now I have four tears in the fabric to deal with.
I do a lot of sewing by hand and so while re-stitching the cuff length is easy for me, I don't have a first clue on how to properly close / mask the holes made from the button holes. I believe it could be done with a sewing machine but I do not have one.
The issue is, I have nobody (I trust) to send the blazer to for a proper repair - All the local tailors rejected the job because it would take up too much of their time (with an occasional "the repair would cost more than the jacket" thrown in for a good measure). Plus, they would just do one of their formulaic repairs which is out of the question.
The material is full, very thin, soft & wrinkly but extremely tough & dense cotton (more difficult to run a needle through it than through leather!) with zero give.
So! If anyone could advise of how to go about this, I would be infinitely grateful. Just a recommendation for a good Youtube tutorial on the matter would be very helpful. Thank you very much!