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Sometimes there are times when you gain or lose weight. Sometimes temporarily and sometimes permanently. Maybe that fitted blouse now fits even tighter around your stomach, and you are tempted to throw it away for that reason. I used to do that too. Until I received a tip from a saleswoman at Cavallaro on how to make a blouse slightly roomier. Time to share it with you as well.
My tight blouse
Because I have had a fairly stable weight for years, I mostly use this trick on older blouses. These are blouses that are half to a full size too small.
Additionally, unlike before, I now prefer to wear clothes that do not fit too tightly around my stomach. It’s also a matter of personal taste. Perhaps you have a blouse that fits well, but you would prefer it to be just a bit looser.
How to make your blouse roomier
For this article, I chose the blouse from Sutherland shown above. It is a tailored model with a thin, striped pattern in white and brown. It fits tightly around my back and stomach.
What I’m going to do is remove the extra seams located at the back of the blouse. Almost every blouse (for women, not usually for men) has (dart) seams that ensure the garment fits well on the body. When you remove these seams, you create extra space.
To ensure the blouse doesn’t look like a sack, I keep the seams at the front intact. These ensure that the front of the blouse fits well around the bust and waist.
When removing the seams, it’s important to do this from the inside of the blouse. For me, it involves two seams that each take in two centimeters of fabric at my back. In total, I’m giving my blouse four centimeters of extra space.
To cut the seams, I use a pair of hairdressing scissors. These have a pointed tip, making it easy to get under the stitching of the seams. I loosen both the ends and the beginning of the seams and then carefully pull the thread out. You will see small holes in the fabric, but that’s not a problem. If you remove the thread carefully, these holes will close on their own after wearing and washing the blouse.
Before and after
In the photos above, you can see how the blouse looks after I removed the seams at the back. There is more space around my back, and it fits a bit looser around my stomach.
Above, you can see the difference between keeping and removing the seams. In the top three photos, the seams are still in place, and in the bottom three photos, they have been removed.
As you can see, the blouse still fits somewhat tightly around my bust. I could choose to remove the vertical seams at the front near my bust. To maintain some shape, I wouldn’t remove them entirely. For now, I’m leaving them as they are because I know that after washing and wearing the blouse, the fit might change slightly. And I want to wait and see how it turns out.
A size bigger?
Lately, I have talked to people about this method of creating extra space in your blouse. One of the most common remarks was that it’s a shame to immediately cut into your blouse. After all, you could just buy a blouse in a bigger size, right? Yes, that’s what I initially said to the saleswoman at Cavallaro when she suggested opening the seams. I was wearing a size 46 blouse but found it still a bit tight around the stomach. She said it looked good and was meant to fit that way, but it didn’t feel right to me.
When I tried the same blouse in size 48, I found that it was looser around my stomach but didn’t fit well around my arms anymore. The saleswoman had already warned me about this and, without hesitation, cut into the first blouse I tried. She opened the seams to show me that size 46 was really the right size and that I would prefer it without the extra seams at the back.
Do you have blouses lying around that you plan to open the seams of, or do you think it’s a waste to do so?
Best regards,