Is It Worth Altering Clothes – or Buying New?

The three questions that decide it

Before you choose between altering and buying new, ask yourself these three questions. If you answer yes to the first two and wear the garment regularly, an alteration usually pays off:

• Is the quality good? Check the fabric, the seams and whether the garment still has life in it – there is no point altering something almost worn out.
• Is the change small to moderate? Adjusting length or width is a very different matter from rebuilding shoulders or the cut from scratch.
• Will you wear it? A garment you love and wear often easily justifies an alteration; an impulse buy you rarely reach for does not.

Buy for the shoulders – the rest can be altered

The most important rule from the tailoring trade: some parts of a garment are expensive and hard to change, others are easy. The shoulders and chest of a jacket set almost the entire fit and are costly to rebuild – so you should buy for those. The rest are the cheap, high-impact alterations.

• Easy and worth it: hemming length, taking in or letting out the waist, tapering legs, shortening sleeves, taking in side seams.
• Hard and often not worth it: changing shoulders, rebuilding the chest, making a garment substantially bigger, or many big changes at once.

Do the cost-per-wear maths

The most honest yardstick is not what the alteration costs, but what it costs divided by how many times you will wear the garment afterwards. An alteration that makes a good jacket fit right and get worn for years becomes cheap per wear. A new garment to replace it usually costs more – and a well-fitting piece you already own almost always beats a new one that has to be bought and broken in. Weigh the alteration against the cost of replacing the garment, not against nothing.

When it is not worth it

Sometimes the honest answer is to leave it. Then it is better to repair for everyday wear, give away or recycle the garment than to pay for an alteration:

• The fabric is thin, discoloured or near the end of its life.
• The change is too big – you want to go up or down several sizes, or rebuild the cut itself.
• Several alterations are needed at once, together exceeding the value of the garment.
• It is a cheap garment where a new, well-fitting version costs about the same as the work.

Unsure? Let a tailor assess the garment

If you are unsure whether the garment can take the alteration, or how much is possible, a tailor can assess it before you decide. You get a concrete answer on what can be done, and can weigh it against buying new – often a well-fitting alteration is both cheaper over time and a better choice for the environment, because the garment stays in use. We pick up and deliver across Norway, and you see the price before you order, so you can make the decision with the numbers in front of you.

Frequently asked questions