New frugality sewing up business for tailors' shops

Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.

That Yankee ode to thrift may have gone out of fashion during the past decade of skyrocketing home equity and stock market gains.

But as shopping falls by 30 percent nationally, more people are turning to the back of their closets instead of buying the latest from high-end boutiques.

"Money is tight, people are bringing things back out of the closet," says Alex Nguyen, owner of Alex's Tailor By Design at 6135 Lakeside in Reno.

"We saw the upturn in November. They bought things when the economy was good; now they go shopping in their closet."

While some customers bring in bargains they found at thrift shops, says Nguyen, most of the clothes that come in for alterations are high-end items, worthy of the extra expense.

At Alterations Connection, a shop at 1320 S. Virginia St., owner Dawn Kearns says, "People are bringing me things trying to make them work, such as shortening skirts to make them look newer. Or they bring in something they've bought but never worn and ask, "Can you make this work?"

That approach works with long-term clients, when she knows their taste in clothes, she adds, or when a customer asks her opinion. Some of those customers come from as far as Quincy and Tonopah; one even flies in from Elko.

"I'm 57 and I've been sewing all my life," says Kearns, who employs four at her shop. "After we fit 10 million people, we know what looks good on them. We watch fashion. It's what we do."

In Winnemucca, Seams Heavenly Sewing owner Carol Ames has seen a steady increase in customers in the two years since she opened. Zippers and hems are the bread and butter of her business.

"Before they knew I was here, a lot of people threw out jeans that needed a new zipper," she says. Meanwhile, short people and chubby children comprise the bulk of the trouser hemming market.

But Ames recently tapped into a goldmine: Safety regulations at central Nevada mines. She recently invested $2,000 in an industrial grade sewing machine able to get up inside seams to sew reflective safety stripping onto jackets and coveralls.

The hardest part of running the business was finding her two employees. Because, says Ames, "Sewing is a lost art."