I've only just started to lost the weight I have set out to lose, but I figured that this particular place would be the best to ask this question: How easy is it to adjust clothing in a way that looks decent?
I have to admit to being something of a clothes horse. It's my one real vanity My mum is a shopaholic and she loves to buy me nice clothes and I love to wear them. I kid you not when I say I have and wear over 40 pairs of pants, and a like number of skirts and dresses. So - I don't really want to toss them all, partly because I like them, but also because it is $$$$$ to replace them. I used to sew 20+ years ago but I never adjusted things more than a small bit.
Most of my clothing is a 16 (was kind of tight!) or a 14 (mostly fits now). How much can I size things down without having to toss them? I know things like jeans-type pants will be a lost cause, but looser things - I should be able to adjust them quite a bit, no?
What have you found was worth adjusting and what looked stupid after you tried to salvage it?
I've done a lot of altering over the years when I've lose weight. I'm only an intermediate sewer, so I never did very well with very fitted garments. Less fitted things I did pretty well with. Blouses and skirts are easiest, pants are a little trickier. I just follwed the seam allowances and sewed inward, starting with the side seams. Usually that was good enough. The inseam of pants, darts, and sleeves could be a gamble.
I've added darts in the waist of skirts successfully but that's about it. I've had to let some nice dress pants and expensive knitwear go recently as two sizes too big is not a good look.
My advice is to find a good seamstress. Professional alterations will pay for themselves many times over if you have good-quality clothes that you love.
But there are limits on even what a pro can take in. I have a wonderful seamstress and she's rebuilt skirts for me and taken in pants, but she says jackets that are too large are a problem. The armholes are cut too big and there's no fabric to make them smaller. And it's hard to reconstruct a fitted garment with a lot of seaming.
So find a pro, take your clothes to him/her as you're losing, and see what can be saved.
Toss, but most of my clothes are cheap stuff anyway, so by the time I shrunk within them, they were already threadbare at the thighs (from chafing) and not worth being kept. If I had a really good/expensive piece of clothing, though, I'd probably have it altered, provided this was possible (cf. Meg's comment about jackets).
This is funny actually but I have a pair of Levi's that I bought that was a slight to big,they were the 518 that I love and you can't get around here anymore,and they fit pretty decent I use a shoestring to tie 2 belt loops together!!
Hmmm... that makes sense about jackets and armholes. A seamstress is a good idea - thanks! Darts and certain other simple things should be pretty easy for me to do. I was probably about intermediate level too, but that was a loooong time ago - I have no idea if I'm up to anything trickier!
But yeah, a seamstress can help me decide what is really worth saving and what I have to let go. Oh well - at least it's easier to take things in than to let them out, and it's way better on the morale
I haven't been buying expensive clothing (actually, I've been buying cheap stuff because I knew I was going to go through it down to the next size), so I donate my old stuff. If I had bought a really nice outfit, I might have had it altered. This just wasn't the case for me
Jeans you can wear with a belt for quite awhile, and you can take darts in the back too, though you'll need to cut away the excess fabric or it'll be too lumpy. Skirts too do will with darts at the waist, and those with no waistband are fairly easy. Shirts/jackets and sweaters are pretty much a lost cause. I've kept too large t-shirts for painting, but mostly I donate stuff. Thank goodness all my socks always fit!
I kept one BIG pair of jeans as a reminder and a few old t shirts and sweat shirts for painting and yard work, and tossed or donated the rest. One of the greatest rewards for all the hard work of losing and the continued hard work of maintenance is...ta da...a new wardrobe! If you and your mom love to shop and you can afford it, new clothes are a great incentive to keep the weight off. I started out a very tight 16-18 and am in the low single digits now. I'm a good seamstress and have a good tailor...but I can't fathom how anyone could remake most clothes from a 16 to a 4 or so. The proportions are all wrong. You'll find that parts of you are just unfathomably smaller. Shoulders, for example, and your back. Even with a lot of strength training and a naturally wide back, I'm just swallowed up by my former clothes.
If you can afford new ones, sell the old ones at a consignment shop if they are high quality or donate them to a worthy cause.
And new clothes are just more fun- you may find yourself wearing entirely different styles that you thought you could never wear.
When I was at my heavier weight I never really bothered to buy myself very nice or expensive clothing. So for me, it was toss the stuff and buy new stuff. I sure don't deprive myself of good clothing now.
I wish there was some easy to predict what size I'd be when I hit my target weight!! I'm tallish and have a large frame and big boobs, so I doubt I'll ever fit into a four - even if I looked like a bag of antlers, I think I would be too large I imagine if I wind up a size 10, a lot more will be salvageable then if I wind up a size 8.
I think I'll look into consulting a seamstress and start saying goodbye to my jackets and other complicated things then (damn - I *like* my winter coats!!!). I've been looking for a consignment shop in my area for years, used clothing shops are easy to find, but they don't discriminate between something nice and 'ye olde ratty t-shirt'.
I am planning on keeping my biggest pair of pants as a reminder of what I don't want to happen again. Between that and the new clothes that my mum has already started buying (I swear she lives to shop!), I'll have enough motivation to stay out of them
I thought about keeping my biggest pair of jeans, but I don't want anything in the house in that size ever again. It hit me that the only thing this fat has been good for has been comfort for my kids. They really like to snuggle on my soft parts. So, when I went down my first size, I immediately cut up my biggest clothes and started making garments and blankets out of them for my kids. That way, my kids still get the comfort from my fat, but I don't have to keep it on my body for that to happen.
I should add that my kids are all young enough that this is not yet a horrifyingly uncool thing to do.
I think I will go ahead and add darts to the jeans I am wearing now, though, that are big and baggy -- since I am still about lbs. from the next size down hanging in my closet.
I already love to do tons of sewing/altering to my clothes, so I'll just downsize them. I only wear skirts for bottoms so they should be relatively easy to adjust. (And while I'm at it, I can add bows and lace and stuff. ) As for the shirts that I REALLY like, I plan on keeping them, making them smaller, or make halter tops out of them and stuff like that. I'm a big fan of 'doing it yourself', and some times I have to be, because I'm into more alternative fashions that aren't easily found in most stores...
All of these are great ideas. I especially love the idea of the quilts from your old clothes for your kids. I actually think that is really a loving and beautiful idea. When my husband is gone on a business trip I don't change the sheets until the night before he is scheduled to come back so when I lie down in bed I can "smell" him.
I had never thought about making other clothes from my existing clothes but that too is a great idea. I am a beginner sewer but I could dust off my sewing machine and see what I could come up with. I also have a creative bend so this might be a great way to "re-invent" myself along the way as I greet the "old new" me as I lose the weight.
I am in the "camp" where I needed to have professional looking clothes for work throughout the years and, yes, some of my clothes were as expensive as my husband's suits. My lifestyle has changed somewhat in its formality but I still love clothes (I am clothes horse too) and I really do love some of these clothes that helped me face the world as a fat woman. I always got compliments on what I wore--not on me, mind you but on what I wore.
I had already thought about a professional seamstress for those clothes that I feel are too good to be sold for 1/10 of their cost which is what seems to happen at a lot of consignment shops.
Just this past weekend, we had a winter storm here in Atlanta and I was able to wear a pink/white herrringbone tweed coat I bought in 2004. It was snug on me back then. Yesterday, I wore a fuchsia sweater and wool blazer underneath it and there was still about 3-4" I could pull away from my body. I have only been able to wear this coat 3-4x.(we moved from the North to the South 4 years ago) I want to get full use out of it so I hope that I will be able to "salvage" that but now that I know that I could make something else out of the material that is a great idea too. It is too beautiful to part with.
fat clothing you like - keep and adjust or toss?
My mum is a shopaholic and she loves to buy me nice clothes and I love to wear them. I kid you not when I say I have and wear over 40 pairs of pants, and a like number of skirts and dresses. So - I don't really want to toss them all, partly because I like them, but also because it is $$$$$ to replace them. I used to sew 20+ years ago but I never adjusted things more than a small bit.
Professional alterations will pay for themselves many times over if you have good-quality clothes that you love. 
) As for the shirts that I REALLY like, I plan on keeping them, making them smaller, or make halter tops out of them and stuff like that. I'm a big fan of 'doing it yourself', and some times I have to be, because I'm into more alternative fashions that aren't easily found in most stores... 
I am so glad this topic was brought up!
