Clothes taken in- weight loss

[lking12]

Hi all, I’m on the way to dropping a dress size going from a big size 18 to hopefully a small size 16. I bought new clothes recently for a holiday that are a size 18, specifically some really nice trousers and I have some expensive workwear too.

Is it feasible these could be adjusted/taken in and look nice? There is a good seamstress place on our high st, but I’m not sure how honest they will be about whether actually it’s worth doing? Or it’ll end up looking bad.

I could buy it all again but some of the items are no longer available/out of season.

Heres an example of a pair I really like but are now getting on the larger side.

The position of the pockets is a bit awkward.

To take trousers in you can either lake in a bit on the middle back seam, which will pull the whole trouser back, that wouldn’t be easy on this one, or, more precisely take in a small amount from each side seam. In this instance that would mean removing and reattaching the waistband and possibly repositioning the pockets. I’m not a pro though but it might be worth asking the seamstress.

A good seamstress / tailor should be able to do that. I regularly buy things second hand and get them taken in. You could start by getting them to alter one thing and then see what kind of job they make of it.

I have a lot of clothes tailored, even quite cheap things. I find if I’m honest with them they tend to be honest back. So I just say I want their opinion on whether something is fixable or whether it’s destined for eBay. They recently advised me not to have a couple of pairs of trousers altered as the size difference was too great and I’d never be happy with the result. But they took a dress with quite a complex structure (lined/side zip/fitted waist/pockets) down three dress sizes and it’s beautiful. It’s not a cheap option though. I paid £50 to have the dress done. While I know that’s a lot to pay though, it was very cheap when I consider they probably had to take the entire thing apart and rebuild it.

One size down is easy enough, it's just a normal getting a good fit alteration as opposed to sizing anything down drastically (sorry, don't mean to put a downer on your weight loss effort, I just mean it's not as challenging as taking something down several sizes which might require pulling the whole thing apart and starting again).

The thing to consider though, is it worth the money, good alterations aren't cheap. I personally wouldn't really consider it until I knew the new weight could be sustained long term.

Ah really sorry, I hadn't looked at those pockets properly. Billybagpuss is right that they could make it a trickier. I'm sure there's a solution but it could make it a bigger job than they want to take on for the money, if that makes sense? Have you got something more straighforward that you could ask them to do first?

I’m not quite there with my weight loss yet so think it’ll be ok but for next summer hopefully I’ll be thinner. I struggle with fit anyway as I have a big bum but thin legs so it might generally be worth considering.

I HATE clothes shopping so for me it will
be worth paying to get my favourite items tailored. Even if it costs as much as buying new. Hopefully they’d consider a volume discount.
thanks all!