Reader Question: Can I Tailor My Jeans?

Tom asks:

Is it possible to have jeans shortened, like chinos or dress pants? Is this necessary? I have a shorter inseam (29) than is often available, and can never remember to roll up the cuff; my jeans always get really frayed and worn on the hem.

Yes, it’s totally possible! And more than that, highly recommended. Your pants should be falling above the back of the shoe, not dragging on the ground behind you. If your pants go longer than that, then yes. To the tailor you go.

{Remember that Friends episode where Ross had to tell Joey his tailor was “a bad man?” I miss that show..}

Get recommendations on tailors from guys whose style you admire. Co-workers, friends…even sharply-dressed strangers. They’ll appreciate that you notice that their sense of style, and you’ll get the benefit of not having to pick a tailor’s name out of the phone book (or probably more accurately, off Yelp) and hope for the best.

Pants should never be pooling around your ankles, and you certainly shouldn’t need to cuff your pants to have them fit right. That sounds like a Band-Aid solution to use on a problem that really requires surgery.

Honestly, most off the rack items in a guy’s closet could probably use a little tweak here and there. There are things that can’t be fixed (the shoulders in a suit jacket being too wide, for instance, kind of puts you SOL), but for the most part a good tailor will be able to fix at least some of the issues you have with your clothing – and definitely the ones that deal with your pants.

Maybe most importantly: understand that it’s not your body, it’s the clothes. Those chinos you bought were fitted on either a form mannequin at worst, or at best a fit model who the brand hopes has the same body type, is the same height, and weighs the same as the largest number of guys out there who identify themselves as the specific size you’ve picked up in your hands at the store. It would be great to think that everyone who classifies himself as a “__ / __” needs the exact same fit, but that’s not reality.

Ultimately, any clothes that sit in your closet because you don’t like quite how they fit is not doing you any good. And any clothes you wear anyway but feel terrible in, likewise, are not doing you any good.  Find the tailor, fix the fit.