The Tailors' Thread: Fit Feedback and Alteration Suggestions - Page 161

Quote:

Originally Posted by acecow 

I bought a raincoat online. It fits me well in the shoulders and chest, I think. However, the waist is humongous. Now, I've never really owned a coat before, because I live in Los Angeles, so I'm not aware of how they are supposed to fit. Nevertheless, I think my coat must be tighter than it is right now. Is it possible to alter the waist of a raincoat presented below? What are your thoughts on the fit of it in general? Thank you!

It's pretty roomy. Was it m2m or just bought at your size? If m2m, it shouldn't be so big. If at your size, it would have more ease to fit more bodies. It can be tailored like anything else but the cost could be higher than what a suit or typical overcoat would be depending on how the seams are done. Some raincoats have the seams taped for water resistance. Taking those seams apart just drives up the labor. 

Other than the waist area, the fit is nice.

OTCtailor: thanks very much. I saw that the balance was off, and yes, the vent does spread open when I wear it open. The "stooped posture at the neck" -- that would cause my shoulders to sit somewhat forward, right? That's sort of how it feels.

Thanks again.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by YRR92 

OTCtailor: thanks very much. I saw that the balance was off, and yes, the vent does spread open when I wear it open. The "stooped posture at the neck" -- that would cause my shoulders to sit somewhat forward, right? That's sort of how it feels.

 

Thanks again.
 

Perhaps, but not necessarily. That stooped posture is described as trending towards an "S" curved shape from the top of your shoulder blades into your neck. You do see this often times ALONG WITH rolling the shoulders forward, but not always. Protracted, or forward pitched shoulders, come from a tightness in your chest muscles, a tightness in your lat muscles (Lat muscles and the rotator cuff are the muscles that actually create forward rotation of the shoulder) and a looseness, if you will, of the rhomboid muscles. This is different than stooped posture which can develop gradually from walking, standing, or sitting generally bent over or a multitude of other potential causes. Genetic as well.

With forward pitched shoulders, when standing relaxed, you'll feel tension at the front shoulder seam of almost any garment, especially a suit jacket. A good test to find out whether your shoulders are protracted or retracted or neutral is to lay down flat on the floor and extend your arms straight out over your head. Can you touch the floor with the back of your hands? If not, you've got protracted shoulders. 

If you've got this issue and you're legitimately interested in having proper fit in your garments, you must consider your options. A tailor can fix a lot of the symptoms associated but it's not cheap so you'll want to do those alterations only to garments that are really worth it. OR...you find yourself a good mtm program and make sure the person fitting/measuring you is well aware of those postural issues so that you don't end up with the same problem with an expensive mtm suit.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Louis XIV 

OTCtailor, thank you a lot for your reply!
Actually my tailor suggest not to add fabric to the chest but to increase the width of the yoke.
It was my idea to add fabric to the chest and leave the yoke as is.
So I was mostly right but rather than adding 2 inches of fabric to the overall circumference of the chest you would simply add side pleats of one inch on either side of the back, correct?
I am unsure what you want to tell me about the sleeves.
The armholes are actually already very high and comfortably but noticeably hit my arm pit and the sleeves have pleats at the place they are mounted to the cuff.
How many inches of fabric do you typically add to ones biceps circumference when standing relaxed to determine the width of the sleeve?
I thought the reason they get pulled up the arm is because there is too few fabric in the back and there are no buttons to keep the cuffs in place, thus I thought this was a non problem and would simply disappear as soon as I get the problem of the back sortet out.

Adding to the yoke will allow width in the back to have side pleats. That will give you that forward motion you need.

The bottom of the armhole should not noticeably hit your armpit. That's too tight.

The total fit of any garment is determined by the amount of ease is built into the pattern. For example, traditional RTW dress shirts have sometimes 8+ inches of extra fabric added beyond let's say whatever their measurements are for "Large". That is, if a brand's Large is 42-44 at the chest, you might actually measure up to a 50" chest. Obviously this is to fit more people.

A slim fit shirt should have no less than 3 inches of ease at every measurement where there will be movement. That means thru the body, sleeve width & length, armhole, etc. The shoulder width will be fixed and the neck fixed. That's really for your tailor to know. If you go less than that you're going to deal with tightness somewhere.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thanks SF (a new me) 

hello tailors....does the armhole and bicep/sleeve width measurements has a direct relation to shoulder width? I;m trying to nail down my measurements and using a couple of shirts as a basis...Thanks in advance

All of these measurements relate to one another. Answering this question might give you information that would be more confusing to you than helpful. You should post some pics of your shirts if you're not sure if they fit or not. If they don't then we can go from there on what you may want to tweak. 

to me, acecow's raincoat looks like it's designed to fit over a suit jacket, but I'm not sure if he's not wearing one in the picture? obviously whether you're wearing a jacket underneath or not makes a big difference to the fit of any topcoat.

I have a question about the shortening of the sleeve jackets with slits.  When I take my jackets to a tailor to get the sleeves shortened, he cuts the excess fabric and shortens the slits.  Is this proper procedure?  Can a tailor extend the length of a slit on a sleeve jacket?
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by OTCtailor 

Perhaps, but not necessarily. That stooped posture is described as trending towards an "S" curved shape from the top of your shoulder blades into your neck. You do see this often times ALONG WITH rolling the shoulders forward, but not always. Protracted, or forward pitched shoulders, come from a tightness in your chest muscles, a tightness in your lat muscles (Lat muscles and the rotator cuff are the muscles that actually create forward rotation of the shoulder) and a looseness, if you will, of the rhomboid muscles. This is different than stooped posture which can develop gradually from walking, standing, or sitting generally bent over or a multitude of other potential causes. Genetic as well.

With forward pitched shoulders, when standing relaxed, you'll feel tension at the front shoulder seam of almost any garment, especially a suit jacket. A good test to find out whether your shoulders are protracted or retracted or neutral is to lay down flat on the floor and extend your arms straight out over your head. Can you touch the floor with the back of your hands? If not, you've got protracted shoulders. 

If you've got this issue and you're legitimately interested in having proper fit in your garments, you must consider your options. A tailor can fix a lot of the symptoms associated but it's not cheap so you'll want to do those alterations only to garments that are really worth it. OR...you find yourself a good mtm program and make sure the person fitting/measuring you is well aware of those postural issues so that you don't end up with the same problem with an expensive mtm suit.

Great, thank you. It seems I've got the full set, since I certainly can't get the back of my hands on the floor like that, but that's alright -- my general intention has been to go for MTM fitted by an experienced hand as soon as I can afford it anyway. Is this an issue that would be affected by stretching well and lifting weights, or would that just add muscle mass in the same proportions?

Quote:

Originally Posted by AdamWill 

to me, acecow's raincoat looks like it's designed to fit over a suit jacket, but I'm not sure if he's not wearing one in the picture? obviously whether you're wearing a jacket underneath or not makes a big difference to the fit of any topcoat.

if every layer is tailored well, you'd be surprised how much shape you can achieve with even the outermost layer. Of course, it's up to preference on whether to wear with a suit or with less layers but it should still have some shape to it. The side pose shows a total lack of shape...unless you consider "bell" a shape.

Quote:

Originally Posted by YRR92 

Great, thank you. It seems I've got the full set, since I certainly can't get the back of my hands on the floor like that, but that's alright -- my general intention has been to go for MTM fitted by an experienced hand as soon as I can afford it anyway. Is this an issue that would be affected by stretching well and lifting weights, or would that just add muscle mass in the same proportions?

Regarding lifting weights and stretching...the verdicts on this are all across the board. Part of how I got into tailoring is my own personal history with weight lifting, fitness, etc and how it affects the body. I actually have pitched and sloped shoulders as well but with a muscular build. I tried different things forever to get my shoulders to retract and not slope so much but the older you get the harder it is. If you're not a weightlifter normally, posture is affected by primarily genetics and your normal day to day movements. People that have pitched shoulders and a stooped neck by genetics really have it tough when they're sitting at a desk or doing something that makes the body bend over too frequently. Especially if you're tall.

If you are a weightlifter, doing too many bench presses and lat pulldowns...you know the 'ahnold' moves? That'll take your posture in the direction of pitched and stooped because it tightens your chest pulling those shoulders forward and the lats and rotator cuff are actually fully responsible for forward shoulder rotation...not the chest. Combine that with endless sitting as Americans are more prone to than standing and your rhomboid muscles will start to weaken and lengthen as well. There arent' many exercises that strengthen and tighten those rhomboids which are primarily responsible for shoulder retraction. There is one, however, which you can try in conjunction with stretching your chest and front shoulder muscles.

What you do is you buy two smaller nerf footballs. You take those footballs and you position them at the very back of your shoulder deltoid muscles while leaning against a wall. Yes, you may need help. From here you're going to contract the center of your back muscles...the rhomboids. You hold and release. Over time and repitition this will tighten them up. You use nerf footballs because they don't exert resistance outward when you contract and release so it disengages your lats. There is no rear-ward pulling exercise that specifically isolates your rhomboid muscles like this one. Every pulling exercise will engage your lats. An uninformed well-meaning person with pitched shoulders will pull with his lats til he's got a back like Ahnold only to no avail because big lats make shoulder protraction worse.

Hope this helps!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve Papas 

I have a question about the shortening of the sleeve jackets with slits.  When I take my jackets to a tailor to get the sleeves shortened, he cuts the excess fabric and shortens the slits.  Is this proper procedure?  Can a tailor extend the length of a slit on a sleeve jacket?
 

In short, no. This would be easy for you to understand if you could see the inside of the sleeve construction where the vent [slit] is contructed. When I shorten sleeves more than 1" it's probable that I'll actually eliminate that vent and make it a solid sleeve because it's too difficult to re-sew the vent when it's that short. You can shorten from the shoulders which isn't really that sensible unless you're super sensitive about the appearance at the vent or if it has working cuffs.

The only other way is to piece fabric above the vent inside the outside sleeve seam that runs over your elbow. That fabric would have to scarfed from somewhere else on the suit to match. The results would be negligible at best. The tailor would be insulting his worth by doing that, however, unless he's getting paid $$$

Solution when buying new? Try on different brands where the sleeves aren't SOOO long if you can. All RTW brands will make sleeves longer because they fit more people. The less the sleeve has to be shortened, the more vent you'll have.

Prepare yourself guys, this is an absolute trainwreck.  What can be done to salvage?  I know the shoulders are too large, this is partially my fault for asking the MTM people to give me a bit of "growing room".  They gave me way too much lol.  Armholes are enormous.  I'm going to ask them to take out a a good amount of the shoulder padding, it's going to look weird but probably better than what it looks like currently.  There is also some bad collar gap that I don't know whether or not can be fixed....pretty disappointing.  Sleeves also are clearly too long/large.  Pants also came out huge/baggy lol 

Let me know what else I can fix....sorry for bad pics.  If possible I'm going to ask them to scrap the whole thing but that will require some spry bargaining...

My shoulders (yoke) will fill out/broaden in the coming months, as will my chest/back and arms but obviously not enough to fill out this jacket...

1 more fitting before I leave (in Shanghai).

Also, body measurements if they help: 5'9 155, 39" chest, 30" waist (midsection), ? on shoulders but probably somewhere from 17.5"-18" at the moment (narrow in relation to chest/back). Wide hip bones, probably close to 36" around.  Sloped/rounded shoulders.