February 2001: Tribal Stylings

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Q&A: Altering Tiered Skirts

HELP! I bought a tiered skirt from a vendor. I love it! It looks wonderful and spins like a dream. However, the hem is tilted, dipping very very low in front. How can I fix such a huge hemline? G.

Well, hello G.

Many women have this trouble, and not only in dancing skirts. Judging from the description, I would guess that you have a round bottom. Clothing bought "off the rack;" all comes in 'standard' proportions. Shirts are designed for a B bra cup, pants come hemmed for the average 5'6" in women, and skirts are generally designed with a pair of one-inch darts that extend three inches down in back.

Well, many women have a rounded, prominent backside, consider for a moment the popular singer and actress Jennifer Lopez. She's beautiful, exceptionally well built, but even with her near perfect and highly revered figure, she would have trouble buying off the rack too! Why? Well, it's about the proportions between waistline and hip. In general, most clothing makers assume an average difference of about 8 ­ 10 inches between waist and hips.

If you measure your waist, and then your hips, you may find that this difference is bigger. Alternately, some women fall within that 8 ­ 10 inch standard, but their hips might be narrow, with more flesh across their bottom and less tummy. Another problem faced by some performers is where on the hips they wear their skirt. Some dancers simply wear their skirts with the waistline dipped in the front, so that the back of the waist is sitting higher up the body than the front. Although this may be just a slight angle at the top of the skirt, down at the hemline this can translate into a very big difference.

The end result, no matter what is causing this problem, is that you need to adjust your skirt. Don't even THINK about changing the hem. Some tribal skirts can be as full as 15 yards at the bottom and any adjustment at the hem will take a lot of time. The best place to make a hemline adjustment is at the waistline.

Before you begin, I recommend putting the skirt on and positioning the waistband at the proper level on your hips. Bend your knees and play with the skirt a bit to get any wrinkles or major creases to fall out. Ironing the skirt will also help it hang at it's best for the alteration. You want your skirt to be hanging perfectly. For the fitting you will need several large safety pins, a full-length mirror or a friend to help you.

1. Turn to the side and look in the mirror. Do a mental estimation of how much the front of the skirt needs to come up. For the most accurate results, have a friend measure from the floor up at the center front and the center back. Subtract the back from the front, and you have the amount the skirt needs to be taken up.
2. At the center front, just below the waist band, take a horizontal pinch of fabric the thickness of the amount you need to take up and pin it together. Pinch another bit, though less thick, halfway between your center front and side. Do this on both sides.
3. Move in your skirt, dance a bit, spin, lift and handle the skirt as you would during a dance performance. When you are done, look in the mirror again. Does it still look like a good length? If so, then it's time to go on to the alteration. If it still doesn't seem right, repin and try again until you get it where you like it. Take the skirt off and mark with pins where you need to make the change.
4. The alteration can be easy and quick, or more laborious depending on your skill and needs. Below are a few ways to make this alteration.

Stitch a huge fish-eye dart. When you lay out your skirt, you will find that the area you have pinned resembles a football, thick in the middle, and tapering out towards the side. You have just created what is called a fish-eye dart. If you don't mind the way the skirt will look without a hip-wrap over it, this can be a fast and easy solution. You can either hand stitch this using a running stitch and sturdy thread, or machine stitch it. Sewing is reversible as long as you don't cut. In a stopgap situation when you need the skirt fast, you might want to baste it up, and save the major alteration until later.

Move the alteration to the waistband. Probably the most elegant, but more time consuming method to fix this problem is to remove the waistband and then cut the excess fabric away, and then restitch the skirt to the waistband. Following the diagrams and directions below.

Pin Pin Pin! I know there are dancers out there who hate to sew. If you are one of these ladies, you may feel the need to resort to the non-sewer's favorite, a string of safety pins. If you do this, please take my advice and put the pins on the outside of the garment. If they accidentally pop open, they will stab your belt or hip-wrap rather than your tummy. In addition, this will add bulk at the top of your skirt, which may create an unflattering buldge. Another no-sew fix-it for this dilemma is to use fusible webbing to glue the fish-eye dart together. And finally, there is the old roll and pin method. Some dancers with this problem find that if they just roll the front part of their hemline down and pin at the center with a big diaper pin, the skirt appears to be fixed.

If you have any burning costuming questions, drop me a line, and we will try and get it into an issue. Write to me at davina@davina.org.

Fitting Illustrations are on their way!