Tailoring
I needed new pants. The ones I had, I had to unbutton at my desk. They fit, in that they technically went on, but wearing them was getting unbearable.
In Vivant’s tiny dressing room, I awkwardly de-robed, worried any errant movement might sweep open the curtain that was posing for walls and reveal me, in my underwear, to the crowd. I couldn’t get the first pair of pants over my thighs—there’s a funny story here about a friend who is very, very strong, and when he was getting fitted for a suit, sent his measurements to an incredulous tailor who returned a pair of pants for someone else’s body, clothes he literally could not get on. Which is to say it was a surprise, though not completely.
Since I started lifting weights last year, my body has changed—in a “slowly, all at once” sort of way. I have some muscles that weren’t there before. Also, I am bigger, most noticeably in the arms and ass region. I love it—getting strong is the best I’ve ever felt—but it’s also hard not to feel a twinge of sadness when a thing I used to wear regularly no longer works. Having a body is hard!! (Please let me know when I can be a brain suspended in a jar.)
The pants that ended up fitting were also too long, but this was fixable. After an ill-fated attempt to hem them myself (“shorten jeans original hem” YouTube tutorial, 0/5 stars), I took them to an actual tailor. Now, they’re perfect.
It made me think I should get more things tailored—and I was reminded of this, by Rachel Connolly, on how tailoring makes possibilities out of old clothing, and the patience required to find and perfect an item as a kind of antidote to fast fashion sensibilities. Trading convenience and instant gratification for something better, perhaps—to make things that fit, make things fit me.