So My Tailor Ruined Four of My Shirts . . .

[magogian12345]

Last week, I took 8 of my shirts (4 BB, 3 Canali, and 1 HF) to my favorite tailor to have the lower sides and lower back taken in. Basically, the shirts would tent out at the sides and lower back.

He measures me and says that he will take in about two inches on each side. He pins up the shirts while they are on me, and it looks good.

So, I get the 8 shirts back yesterday. I don't try them on at his shop because I have to run to another appointment. When I do try put one of the BB shirts on, I can barely fit my arms into the sleeves! For some reason, they drastically reduced the armhole size on the sleeve. I can put the shirt on, but the bottom part of the armhole rides up my armpit. Plus, if I extend my arms in front of my body (like to type) it pulls hard on the shirt making it very uncomfortable around the upper sides of my back. There is not extra fabric on the seams, so I doubt that they can open up the armhole again. Plus, it seems that they took two inches out all the way up the seam, so it is fairly tight on my chest as well.

My tailor knows better than this because he has had plenty of experience with me before, and knows that my body shape (very muscular) means I need space in the arms. Plus, why the heck would the armhole be changed so much anyway?

Anyways, they did this (ruined) all four of my BB shirts. Thankfully, for some reason, they properly altered my Canali and HF shirts. So, those are fine, but I can't wear the BB shirts as they are. (And yes, he did have me wear each shirt so he could see how each one should be altered).

(1) Speaking practically, can the tailor somehow enlarge the armholes, even through there doesn't seem to be any extra fabric left (they must have cut the extra fabric off after resizing the armholes)? Or is there another way he can fix it?

(2) Does anyone know the industry practice for dealing with this, assuming he can't fix the shirts? I want to continue our relationship, but I don't think I should bear the entire loss here for his mistake. At a minimum, I assume he has to refund what he charged me for the incorrectly altered shirts. Also, I plan to buy four new shirts to replace the four ruined ones. I'm thinking its reasonable to ask him to correctly alter those 4 new ones for free. As I will be eating the cost for the shirts, and not asking him for money on them. What do you all think?

 

[magogian12345]

Nothing really?

 

[mack11211]

Regarding (1). If the fabric is gone, I don't know how you can get it back. Things taken in can be let out, but only if the fabric remains.

Regarding (2). What do you want most: your relationship with this tailor, or shirts that fit. If he can't do the job, best to move on. One thing to note, however, if four fit and four do not, is that perhaps some of the work was done by someone else. Perhaps your tailor has partners or assistants in or out of the shop.

Regarding who should pay for what, I have no advice.

 

[Mike89LX]

Sorry I can't help to answer if the old shirts are salvagable, but at the very least he should offer to pay for the new shirts. I also believe since you paid him for altering the old shirts he should alter the new ones for free if necessary. That would just be good business practice, the best thing I could suggest is to simply ask him face to face

 

[magogian12345]

Originally Posted by mack11211

Regarding (1). If the fabric is gone, I don't know how you can get it back. Things taken in can be let out, but only if the fabric remains.

Regarding (2). What do you want most: your relationship with this tailor, or shirts that fit. If he can't do the job, best to move on. One thing to note, however, if four fit and four do not, is that perhaps some of the work was done by someone else. Perhaps your tailor has partners or assistants in or out of the shop.

Regarding who should pay for what, I have no advice.

Yah, he has about 4 employees or assistant tailors. So perhaps two different people worked on the two groups of four shirts. I guess I will find out on Monday.

 

[mack11211]

Originally Posted by magogian12345

Yah, he has about 4 employees or assistant tailors. So perhaps two different people worked on the two groups of four shirts. I guess I will find out on Monday.

This is better, relatively, as now he has someone else to blame.

 

[SlamMan]

To me, the ethical thing for him to do would be to replace and alter the shirts. Or at minimum give you store credit for the value of the shirts and refund you for the altering. Since you had each shirt pinned up and half of them came out okay it's pretty obvious something went wrong in their hands. Now whether the tailor will or has to is another story. I'd go somewhere else if he doesn't do something to make you whole.

 

[SkinnyGoomba]

i think your request is quite reasonable, it doesnt require him to put money out of his pocket, and you take a good portion of the expense.

For him, its the expense of having an apprentice in his shop....sometimes they really screw the pooch and you have to pay for it. It obvious here, since your more expensive shirts were done by someone more competent.

 

[JayJay]

Your request is a modest one given the loss you've incurred.

 

[David Reeves]

You have to insist he compensates you for the shirts. If I had done work like this I would compensate either with Credit or cash. If he doesn't want to do this find another tailor and name and shame him all over the internet.

 

[True North]

I have had the exact same experience as you, with multiple tailors. I insist very, very strongly that all I want them to do is aggresively take in the sides around the waist, and I get the shirts back and they have slimmed down the whole shirts so my back/chest and arms cannot fit in. A few times, if they left enough space inside, I have had them taken back out enough to be wearable.

In terms of fixing them, look inside and see if there is extra fabric (at least 3/4 inch) inside the seam. If not, you are out of luck.

I am not sure why tailors cannot seem to grasp the concept of not slimming the whole shirt. However, when taking just the waist in is done properly, it looks great and emphasizes the stature. Luckily my MTM guy's multi-spot measurements always seem to work out perfectly, but it sucks not feeling comfortable buying a shirt off the rack that you like.