I have serval pairs of drees slack that I would like to update, i.e. remove the pleats in front, lower the waist.
Anyone have suggestion the best route to take to bring these slacks into fashion.
Thanks,
------------------------------------- valerie L. Brooks
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Directly to the nearest thrift shop, and donate them?
You don't give a hint about your sewing skills. Unless you are a VERY skilled alterationist, this is not going to be an easy project. First, to remove the pleats you would have to move both the side seam and center front seam toward the center, otherwise the front will be completely off grain. That means removing the zipper and fly (if there is one), removing the pockets (if there are pockets), cutting the new front without pleats, and cutting the new waist lower both front and back. Reinstall the fly and pockets, and somewhere, find enough fabric to cut a new waistband, since it will now be longer and have to be curved, and the old one will not serve for that purpose. Way beyond anything I would tackle unless the originals were from Coco Chanel.
It would seem to be fairly easy to change the pleats into darts. Changing the waistline is a little more complicated since you would probably need to enlarge the waistband for a lower waistline.
There are others here who can probably much better advise you but I do wish you good luck with your project.
If these are dress slacks, there will be more in the pleats than can be taken in with darts. When making the pleats in the first place, the pattern would have been slashed through the center of the dart, all the way down to the hemline, and spread open. This would have been done twice if there are two pleats. The will need to be completely taken apart and re-cut. I agree that the thrift store abandonment is the best advice.
Depends on if they were budget pleats or proper pleats,,, different pattern went into them. Budget pleats just convert the dart takeup to tucks; real pleats mean you get to recut the entire front of the pants.
Or do a faced waist. But why bother, since waistlines are headed back up to something anatomically more probable?
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