Iranian Tailoring & clothing

Iranian tailoring in Germany: the shops that make a garment you own fit you, and make one you do not own out of cloth. One thing explains both the prices and the refusals: you are paying for hours of work, not for the garment. Taking up a hem is a few minutes. Narrowing the shoulder of a jacket means half the jacket comes apart and goes back together, and can cost more than the jacket did.

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Which jobs are routine and which mean rebuilding the garment

The line between an easy job and a hard one is whether the garment must be opened where its structure lives. Routine work happens on a seam that runs out to an edge:

• Shortening trouser legs and skirt hems.
• Taking in a waistband at the centre back seam, which is there for exactly that.
• Taking in the sides, as far as the cloth folded inside the seam allows.
• Shortening a shirt sleeve at the cuff, or closing a seam that has come open.

The hard jobs are the ones where part of the garment has to be built again:

• The shoulder, which is what a jacket hangs from. Narrowing it means taking the sleeve out, recutting the armhole and setting sleeve and lining back in a new position. A rebuild, not a repair.
• The chest and front of a jacket, where the canvas, pockets and buttonholes are all positioned relative to it. Move it a centimetre and you move them all.
• Anything cut on the bias, which takes a new shape the moment a seam is opened.
• Stripes, checks and prints, where the pattern has to line up across the seam.
• Knitwear and stretch fabric, which has no seam allowance and runs when cut.

Hence a rule worth carrying: buy a jacket or coat to fit the shoulders. Everything below can be adjusted to a degree; the shoulders more or less cannot.

Light jobs carry a fixed price and heavy ones are charged by time, so ask which this is. On a cheap garment the work can cost more than the garment did, and a tailor who says so is saving you money. On a coat that will last years it is worth every cent. Describe the job on the phone before you carry it across the city.

Repairs, darning, linings and zips

Invisible mending (Kunststopfen) deals with moth holes, cigarette burns and small tears. The thread is drawn out of the garment itself, from a hem or a seam allowance, and charged by the hour. On tweed and anything patterned it genuinely disappears; on smooth plain cloth it never quite does. Not every shop offers it, so ask before you travel.

Replacing the lining of a coat is the most expensive thing still called a repair: the whole garment is opened from the inside and closed again. A zip in the back of a skirt is simple; the front zip of a jacket is not, because the front edge and the lining come apart with it.

What a fitting asks of you

Bring three things: the shoes you will actually wear, the underwear that goes under the garment, and for a jacket, the shirt beneath it.

Then stand the way you normally stand. Pull your shoulders back or hold your stomach in and the garment is fitted to a version of you who will not be at the party. Walk, sit, raise your arms and say where it pulls; a phone call two days later is no substitute.

One condition has nothing to do with the tailor: keep your weight steady between the measuring and the last fitting. A few kilos either way is the few centimetres the garment was cut to. If you plan to diet before the day, say so at the first appointment.

How many fittings, and why the last one sits close to the date

What matters more than the number is which fitting makes a change cheap and which makes it expensive. The first happens on a version still tacked together and meant to be taken apart, where changing the fit or even the neckline costs almost nothing. Once the seams are finished and the edges done, the same change costs several times more and some of it is no longer possible. So say everything at the first fitting, even what you are unsure about.

The last one sits close to the date because a body changes over a few weeks and the measurements have to be right on the day. Not so close that there is no time left to put something right: leave a couple of working days in hand.

Bringing your own fabric

A normal request here, and most shops take it. It changes one thing: who carries the risk on the cloth.

Call the tailor before you buy, not after. Ask how many metres this design needs and at what width: bolts differ, and patterned or napped cloth needs more, because the pieces all run the same way and the pattern must match across the seams. Buy a little more than the figure you get.

If your cloth runs short mid cut, or shrinks in the first wash, the tailor did not choose it. Settle at the start what happens then, and whether it is steamed before cutting. Keep the offcuts: they are the only matching cloth in existence, and every future repair comes from them.

The busy season in the same shop

The shop that turns trousers around in two days in late autumn may want two weeks in the middle of wedding season. The busy stretches are predictable: the weeks before Nowruz, weddings from spring through late summer, and the run up to any big party. A rush job carries its own rate, which is fair; finding out at the end is not. For a wedding, book the tailor when you book the salon.

It is a short list, so you may have to travel

This list is short and most of it sits in the larger cities, so the nearest tailor may not be in your town. Start from the city list at the foot of this page, and if yours is not there, look at the nearest large city. The real cost of distance is repeating the journey: an alteration is two trips, something made to measure four or more. Ask whether measuring and the first fitting fit into one visit.

In the reviews, look for what can be judged: whether it was ready on the date promised, whether the final price was the price quoted, and whether an impossible job was called impossible before the garment was handed over. Whether a shoulder was recut well is not in anyone's review; you see that in the mirror.

Body measurements are among the more private numbers a person carries. YabInfy does not show who opened which profile or who got in touch, and does not keep it. The only thing visible from your side is a review, under a name you choose.

Agree this before anything is cut

• A written price before work starts, setting out what is included and what is extra.
• A delivery date and a date for the final fitting, both written down.
• What happens if it is not right at the final fitting: how many corrections sit inside that price, and until when. The general rule in Germany for commissioned work is that the maker gets the chance to put it right first rather than money coming back, and a garment cut to your measurements is not returnable because you changed your mind. In a dispute, ask the consumer advice centre (Verbraucherzentrale).
• Who keeps the leftover fabric, if you brought it.
• What happens if the garment is damaged in the shop, especially one you cannot replace.
• YabInfy checks none of this, so ask for it yourself, and ask to see the document where it matters.

Questions about the site itself are answered in the FAQ. Jewelry has its own list, and Iranian clothing and jewelry holds both. Contact details on every profile sit behind "Show contact details", and if you run a tailoring business, add it here.