Tailors discover a silver lining
With weddings postponed and offices shut, business was bleak at Woodside Tailor Shop in Queens during the long months of pandemic lockdown. There was no need for party dress alterations or any pressure for slacks to be hemmed.
But about three months in, things started picking back up in June, with one particular service in sudden demand: People needed a bit more breathing room in their clothing.
“Everybody got fat!” said Porfirio Arias, 66, a tailor at Woodside. “It’s not only in New York. It’s all over the world that people got fat.”
In a city where gyms are still closed, and Netflix and couch the safest evening entertainment, the phenomenon of stay-at-home weight gain — playfully called the Quarantine 15 by some — has brought an unexpected windfall for some tailors. Some said they have seen business rise by as much as 80 per cent, with customers asking for buttons to be moved, waistbands lengthened and jackets made more roomy.
“If some people are uncomfortable, they go work out and do whatever,” said Michael Shimunoff at La Moda Custom Tailors in Queens. “Some people just let out the pants.”
The boost in business has been welcome for many tailors, who often operate in storefronts shared with dry cleaners, which have suffered mightily during the pandemic. Dry cleaning businesses at the peak of the pandemic lost an estimated 80 to 90 per cent in sales compared to previous years.
Smaller tailors who specialize in alterations have suffered more than custom clothing-makers, whose clients have postponed receiving wedding dresses and tuxedos but generally have not cancelled their orders, said Alan Rouleau, president of the Custom Tailors and Designers Association.
“You can’t do tailoring without being in somebody’s face,” Rouleau said. “We are in a high-touch business.”
Many tailors fear that the industry may not bounce back, even as more people return to work, if the traditional workplace culture shifts to the new workfrom-home ethos — meaning more sweatpants and fewer bespoke suits.
Of course, not all New Yorkers have been able to work from home, and the ability to sequester has largely fallen along socio-economic lines: Putting on pandemic pounds is a small downside of what is in essence a tremendous privilege.
Arias’s entire extended family — his wife, two sons, daughter, brother-in-law and mother-in-law — all had their pants let out this month. Or rather, they loaded Arias with their clothes to take to his shop so he could make the required alterations.
He said New Yorkers should not feel bad about needing a few more inches of room. “They can’t go out, they don’t have a room to make exercise, so they don’t have a choice,” he said.
Arias said he has had to take needle and thread to his own trousers. “I got fat, too!”