A few weeks ago a client came to me with a challenge: is it possible to lengthen cropped jeans into full length jeans. Given that she had two very different pairs: one pair of skinny jeans and one pair of flair jeans, the solution is different for both. Here are two ways to lengthen jeans that are too short.
How to lengthen skinny jeans
My favourite way to lengthen a pair of skinny jeans is by adding a faux cuff. What I like about this technique is that you would never know that the jeans have been lengthened because it appears like the jeans were simply folded twice. This is a good technique when you need to lengthen the jeans up to 3″.
For this alteration, I used fabric from an old pair of jeans to make the double layered cuff. I used the reverse side of the denim and made sure to keep the original serged seam allowance for the outside seam. You can do the same for the inner seam but since it doesn’t show as much, it’s not necessary.
Lengthening flare or wide jeans
When you want to lengthen jeans, you can either go with a similar colour denim so that it doesn’t stick out, or you can do like I did for the jeans below and make it a design feature by using the reverse side denim for a contrasting look.
When it comes to lengthening flare or wide jeans, it’s important to make sure to use the same fibre content for the extended piece as the jeans. For example, only use 100% cotton denim for 100% cotton jeans. Otherwise the cuffs won’t fall nicely. With this design, I find there’s no maximum length you can do, and actually, in fact, the larger the cuff, the better it looks.
Bowen and West Van folks, do you have favourite pieces that just don’t fit perfectly anymore? Contact me for a free in house consultation.