Do It Yourself: Dress Alterations

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Finally, you found the perfect dress online, you add it to your cart, type in all your information and purchase it. After stalking the front door, waiting for the dress to come, it finally arrives ready for you to try on…for the first time.


Having the perfect fit dress after an online purchase is rare, very rare, and often a dress needs alterations. Most dress companies will not let you exchange the dress or return it unless there is a major problem and complaining that it’s too long or doesn’t fit you just right usually won’t work.
So you have two options, get the dressed altered which can cost almost more than what the dress was worth or learn how to alter a dress yourself. There are professional ways to alter dresses which take more time and skill, and then there are cheats.

The Pro Way
If you want to do this the right way, you need to get all the right tools. Stop by your local sewing store and ask what you will need to alter a dress. It’s going to be expensive because if you don’t have the patience to sew a dress by hand, you will need a machine. Make a list of everything you are told to purchase, then go online and see what you can find for free or cheap, even hit up thrift stores. You don’t need a brand new machine to do simple alterations.

After you purchase all the right tools, go online and watch a few tutorials or ask your grandmother, or mother if they know how to sew. Sewing is a skill that used to be taught in high school, in a classed called Home Economics, so someone in your line of generations should be able to teach you.
If not, it’s pretty simple. For example if you are trying to alter a hem the first step is to remove the current hem. Using a seam ripper carefully remove the tiny thread on the bottom of your dress or pants, one stitch at a time. Measure a new hem, prepare the hem by pinning and sew the new hem in a straight line with your machine. It’s that easy.

Cheat Sheet
If that sounds too hard for you, you don’t trust yourself around sharp objects or you don’t have the funds then you can cheat. You don’t need to remove the old hem, in fact keep it in but measure out the new hem. Now here are your options:

• Double Sided Tape: A temporary fix that is done by placing the tape all the way inside of the hem, folding the hem up and pressing to seal.
• Pins: Place safety pins inside of them so they are not visible and fold the hem up and under.
• Fabric Glue: Fold the hem up, glue together and wash later to remove.
• Velcro: Dots or straight form will work by sticking them inside of the dress and folding the hem up and over to stick it in place

Whether you go with the sewing option or the quick fixes, you will learn quickly that do it yourself alterations are a cheap way to fix your online fashion problems.

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Buy a cheap formal dress and try out your new alteration skills!

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