REMOVING TROUSER PLEATS

[gyasih]



Believe it or not, I'm actually still waiting on them. I dropped the trousers off with the jacket, and my tailor said he had a six week wait for suits. Wedding season, I assume.

Suffice it to say he said he'd be able to do it easily by recutting the trousers, and charged me $40 (!!!) for it. One of the many reasons why I love the Lower East Side. (That lower price may have been because he already had me for another $100 with all the alterations to the jacket and a few other things.)

Will post pics when it's done.

Where did you go in the LES?

 

[applky]

Good for you man, I think that's a good deal.

It's a great deal. Most good tailors I talked to were looking at charging $100+ just for the pleat operation. We'll see how it turns out -- obviously if you don't get bang for your buck, it's not worth paying less, but I trust the guys I use to do a good job.

My flippant answer to this is - why in G-d's name would you want to???

I look terrible in pleated pants! I'm fairly slim and these were cut quite large. Removing the pleats was a decision about proportion, if anything.

Where did you go in the LES?

Stanton Street Tailors -- my go to for everything. I hear excellent things about Rene, around the corner on Orchard, and also hear that he has a wait of six weeks for suits around now.

 

[llltronlll]



Believe it or not, I'm actually still waiting on them. I dropped the trousers off with the jacket, and my tailor said he had a six week wait for suits. Wedding season, I assume.

Suffice it to say he said he'd be able to do it easily by recutting the trousers, and charged me $40 (!!!) for it. One of the many reasons why I love the Lower East Side. (That lower price may have been because he already had me for another $100 with all the alterations to the jacket and a few other things.)

Will post pics when it's done.

I will be looking forward to them (the pics).


Also, I will have to try your tailor. That is very reasonable.

 

[applky]

^ All of the work he's done for me has been excellent, although this is the (seemingly) most complicated thing he's done. Overall I've been nothing but pleased with their work and with their prices, which are very reasonable.

 

[wacuna]

I got a pair of Ralph Lauren pleated pants into flat fronts for $75. Great work not even a sign that were pleated before. The taylor also made them slim...

 

[a tailor]

hey gyasih
we are still waiting to see your new flat front pants.

 

[gyasih]

Picked them up and shoved them in the closet. I'll try and snap a pick or two

 

[saiyar1]

Hey,

For you NYC guys, I had success with converting my blue label PRL suit pants to flat front. Believe it or not, I use the tailor at Burlington Coat Factory (23rd) for all my tailoring. He's done fantastic work for me. The latest thing (and most advanced) was the pleats this time. It cost $75 and looks like my PRL pants that came flat front originally. Perfect work.

I bought several staple PRL suits online used but in pristine condition for $150-$250. So the extra $75 to make them flat front was WELL worth it.

 

[thegreatgatsby]

Saiyar -

What's the tailor's name at BFC?

(also - what's the cross st.?)

 

[saiyar1]

Gatsby:
It's on the corner of 23rd and 6th Ave. Right at the F train stop. I'm blanking on his name, but there are two guys... one is an Italian guy in his 60's and the other is a Latino guy with a moustache who's around the same ago. My guy is the latter... Chances are you run into my tailor because the Italian guy is only there one or two days a week.

So far I've gotten done:
- waist
- crotch
- seat
- pants hem
- jacket side tapering
- sleeve shortening
- collar lowered
- and finally, removal of pleats

 

[OTCtailor]

Hello everyone. This thread was probably my first result when looking into removing trouser pleats. I'm an alterations tailor in the Lehigh Valley, PA, US. I saw a tailor's drawing and decided to get to work. This alteration is now easy for me to perform, but the challenges were taking everything step by step as once you get the pants ripped apart there is material everywhere. Also, managing the distribution of fullness from the waist down thru the leg took me a few tries to do correctly. Here are pics from start to finish with description per step.
These trousers are double pleated Canali RTW with a ticket pocket. I decided to remove the pleats and keep the ticket pocket even though it's a pointless feature to me. I also have fuller front thighs so when I remove pleats from my own trousers, I add a front dart. These trousers are part of a DB suit. If there were ever a chance for me to wear them with out the jacket, I'd have dropped the front rise as well because I have anterior pelvic tilt which causes a collapse in the front of the cloth. Instead, I just wear them with suspenders under the suit jacket thus saving me even more labor. Total job time is about 3 hours. Once I removed the pleats, I also drastically slimmed the leg so I can achieve a more modern look.
Lastly, I remove all the belt loops and add suspender buttons to the outside of the waistband. It's just my personal preference. I add waist snugs to the waistband to keep my shirt tucked in and maybe I'll make a single pull strap for the back of the trouser out of pocketing or something similar (I'd make side tabs if I had the material to match). When I wear a suit, I almost rarely remove my jacket so I don't care if I have a strap made out of pocketing. Wouldn't care even if I removed my jacket because I'm a tailor and do what it takes to make my clothes fit. If someone sees it, they'll probably ask why it's there and end up with my business card.


From start



ticket pocket


Slicing the pocket away from the pocket facing.


pocket from pocket facing.


front panel from the wrong side ripped from waistband. Outseam is ripped from the knee up.


Ticket pocket removed


Fullness spread out to the side.


A mark is made on the waistband to show position of original pocket line. When the pocket is remade, it will fall at the same spot


front panel pulled back showing pocket bag/facing


Lines drawn to show how fullness will be taken out.
The extreme bias line drawn near the pocket is calculated by adding up total width of unfolded pleats then measuring over from the edge of the pocket.
This fullness isn't taken out of the leg proportionately all the way down the total length. It is taken out only at the top of the waist area where the pleats are the deepest. The fullness that comes out of the leg is about 1" tapered from the bottom of the pocket down to the knee.


The dart added is roughly the size of the smaller pleat. If no dart was added, the bias line drawn for the pocket is a steeper angle.


2nd view


3rd view


Preparing to sew dart and new pockets. The bias line has to be stabilized because it is so extreme. If it isn't stabilized, the material stretches during re-sewing and looks ugly. To stabilize it, I sew strips of pocketing on the straight grain (seen laying) to the wrong side of the front panel. Then I sew up the dart.









This is the wrong side of the front panel after the pocketing strip was sewn on, the dart sewn up, cut down the center, and pressed open. The next step is sewing the pocket facing to the front panel to remake the pocket.



Front panel after sewing dart and pocket. One step you don't see is attaching the pocket back to the pocket facing to fully recreate the pocket. Also, the top of the pocket bag is sewn to the front panel in order to easily re-insert the front panel to the waistband.


After the front panel is attached to the waistband, the trouser is turned inside out. What you're seeing here is the fullness of the front panel extending past the seam allowance of the back panel. The white line is where the sewing line will be. It will taper to nothing at the knee.


Sewing the new outseam. This start around midpoint of the pocket facing seam continuing down to the knee. Here is where the bottom edge of the pocket is reattached to the outseam of the leg.


This is the outseam sewn and pressed open. The **** in the seam allowance is where the bottom edge of the pocket is.


Turned right side out, here the finished result.


closer picture.


now we go to the ticket pocket side. The position of the ticket pocket is determined. The pocket is then re-sewn to the waistband first then to the top edge of the front panel


The front panel is sewn to the waistband. Outseam sewing is done as well.


Finished result


Pleats removed


nicer picture...look closely you can see the darts


not an easy picture to take by yourself

\
finished result when worn.

Not many clients request this to be done. If I did this specific job to a client's trouser including keeping the ticket pocket, I'd probably charge close to $85 as it is quite a job.

 

[Quirk]



Hello everyone. This thread was probably my first result when looking into removing trouser pleats. I'm an alterations tailor in the Lehigh Valley, PA, US. I saw a tailor's drawing and decided to get to work. This alteration is now easy for me to perform, but the challenges were taking everything step by step as once you get the pants ripped apart there is material everywhere. Also, managing the distribution of fullness from the waist down thru the leg took me a few tries to do correctly. Here are pics from start to finish with description per step.
[clipped]

Cool, thanks for the detailed description and photos; didn't quite follow it all, but very interesting.

Noticed this thread after having had a good friend tell me just recently about a tailor he found in lower Manhattan who has been recutting all of his suits from his heftier days, slimming them down and even removing pleats, which I hadn't thought could be done successfully...

 

[Winendine]

had pleats removed from a pair of pants. The pleats disappeared but now the pockets seem to appear "open" or not flush. Would this imply that the trouser seat needs adjustments as well?

 

[OTCtailor]

had pleats removed from a pair of pants. The pleats disappeared but now the pockets seem to appear "open" or not flush. Would this imply that the trouser seat needs adjustments as well?

probably not. In my experience, to remove pleats correctly, you need to figure out a way to leave a little bit of fullness up in the front. I personally do it by leaving a dart there. It's easy to remove too much fullness from the front (which is why pockets gape) when removing pleats.

 

[OTCtailor]

Cool, thanks for the detailed description and photos; didn't quite follow it all, but very interesting.

Noticed this thread after having had a good friend tell me just recently about a tailor he found in lower Manhattan who has been recutting all of his suits from his heftier days, slimming them down and even removing pleats, which I hadn't thought could be done successfully...

It's super easy to see and understand when you're doing it.