Demand for tailors grows even as their ranks dwindle

Custom sewers are aging out of the job, and young people aren't stepping in.

- BY ANNE D'INNOCENZIO

KIL BAE tells young workers that the handiwork of tailoring “cannot be AI’d.”

(ANDRES KUDACKI Associated Press)

Hunched over a sewing machine, Kil Bae is hemming a dress inside his Manhattan tailor shop when a new customer stops by with a vintage Tommy Hilfiger jacket he wants taken in.

The modeling agent paid $20 at a thrift store for his reversible bomber style that's plaid on one side and red on the other. He's willing to spend $280 to have it slimmed down. Alteration requests with such a price disparity would have seemed odd a few years ago, the tailor says, but are helping to keep the bobbins bobbing at his one-man shop, 85 Custom Tailor.

Bae carefully examines the cotton jacket before moving in to pin it, circling the customer like a sculptor with a chisel. He started training as a tailor at age 17, in his native South Korea. Now 63, he's part of a shrinking breed in the U.S., where professional sewers, dressmakers and tailors are aging out of the workforce as their services find fresh demand.

Shoppers who grew upon disposable fast fashion are enlisting tailors and seamstresses to give off-the-rack purchases a custom fit or personal flair, to revive secondhand finds or to extend the lives of their wardrobes, according to fashion industry experts. Weight-loss drugs such as Zepbound and Wegovy mean more Americans are seeking adjusted waistbands, tapered sleeves and other types of resizing, Bae said.

"I recommend this job to young people because this one cannot be AI'd," Bae said, noting artificial intelligence is automating pattern making but so far can't replicate a tailor's handiwork. "Different bodies. Different shape. They cannot copy like this. If I close this door, I can go out and find another one."