Know You’ll Never Get To The Tailor? Here’s How To Make It Fit Anyway

You'd think that someone who writes about fashion for a living would buy clothing that actually fits. Wrong. Recently, on yet another night spent sorting through my closet, I made the four piles I always do when re-evaluating my wardrobe: keep, donate, sell, and "need to get tailored." The only problem was, deep down, I knew the tailoring pile would never actually make it there — because it never has before.

It might be because I haven't found an alterations place I really like or trust, or because I feel like the dry cleaner and tailor in my neighborhood are only open during the most inconvenient hours for people with full-time jobs (seriously, who can actually drop their goods off between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m.?). Then, there's the whole issue of why I end up with so many pieces of ill-fitting clothing in the first place: I'm petite, so I tend to settle when shopping for bottoms, buying them even when they don't fit perfectly. And don't even get me started on my aversion to fitting rooms — I've mistakenly purchased so many things without even trying them on.

So this time, I decided to accept the fact that I'm too lazy to take my clothes to get altered, and refocus that energy on figuring out how to make these closet duds work sans thread and needle. As it turns out, with a little creativity and the right styling, I was able to turn a few ill-fitting pieces into flattering ones. Read on to see how I did it.