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Can you reweave a hole in a suit coat?


Alpo

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This shows up occasionally in old crime fiction. Some private cop - Sam Spade, Mike Hammer - will get shot, and now there is a bullet hole in his jacket and he will have to have it rewoven. Wondering if such a thing was doable.

 

If he was shot in the arm, it would probably be cheaper to have his tailor just make a new sleeve. But if he had had the jacket for a while, the new sleeve color would not match, even if it came from the same bolt of cloth in the tailor shop. Fading in the open-air versus sitting on the shelf.

 

 

As an aside, I just now had the thought that Mike Hammer might have been named because of Sam Spade. Hmmm.

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I read somewhere that while making The Wild Bunch they did not have enough uniforms to dress all the Mexican soldiers that were being mowed down so they had to keep washing the blood off and repairing them as they got torn.  Man it's Hollyweird, they can do anything and make us believe it!

Anyway Moms and Grandmas used to darn socks all the time, so why not jackets. 

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Absolutely do-able.  Many years ago I worked with a lady whose husband was a tailor, and I'd seen examples of his re-weaving repairs.  He would "harvest" threads from someplace else on the garment - inside hem, for example - and carefully match the original weave.  Takes a great deal more patience and skill than I could ever muster up!

 

Totally invisible?  No.  But barely noticeable, to the point that if you didn't know about it you'd not likely spot it.  ;)

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It depends on the hole. I’ve had a hole in the seat of a pair of suit pants repaired by rewearing, along with a couple of moth holes in a suit jacket that I have. You have to look very close to spot the repairs on the jacket. Anyone looking close enough to my rear to notice the pants has some explaining to do 

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It has gotten extremely expensive and very difficult to find someone to provide the service!!

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1 hour ago, Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984 said:

Come to think of it, the “London tailor” was probably in Hong Kong.  :rolleyes:

 

As I recall, my father-in-law had some amazing custom dress shirts made when my in-laws visited Hong Kong once.

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I friend of mine's wife could do it. She mended several garments for me. She worked in the medical field and turned pig heart valves into replacement valves for transplanting into human hearts. She was a miracle worked for sure. She passed away at 90 several years ago.

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38 minutes ago, DocWard said:

 

As I recall, my father-in-law had some amazing custom dress shirts made when my in-laws visited Hong Kong once.

I saw such offers, custom shirts and suits overnight in both Hong Kong and Singapore.  And Rolex watches for $50.  

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8 minutes ago, Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984 said:

I saw such offers, custom shirts and suits overnight in both Hong Kong and Singapore.  And Rolex watches for $50.  

 

I don't know how long they took to make, but my father-in-law was a very oddly proportioned guy, about 5'6", long arms, thick chest and neck. In essence, his nicest shirts were always custom made, but he could afford them. Those he had made in Hong Kong were among the nicest.

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13 hours ago, Sedalia Dave said:

 

 

 

The surprising thing, to me, was that it was done with a needle. The term "rewoven" brought a picture to my mind of somehow putting it on a loom. Maybe disassembling the coat so you only had to focus on the left front.

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1 hour ago, Big Sage, SASS #49891 Life said:

I friend of mine's wife could do it. She mended several garments for me. She worked in the medical field and turned pig heart valves into replacement valves for transplanting into human hearts. She was a miracle worked for sure. She passed away at 90 several years ago.


long long ago, in a galaxy far far away, in a forgettable life once lived but never forgotten, I worked in a packing plant, a slaughter house in Manchester, NH. Every Friday afternoon a courier from Harvard Medical School would come and pick up several hearts from freshly killed cows. That same weekend med students would practice valve surgery. Hearts not selected would be shipped to Europe where offal was more highly appreciated.

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Long ago I worked with a guy that had inlaws in Vietnam.  Every few years he would go there for a couple of weeks to visit. Always came back with several nice custom tailored suits. Said you could get measured in the morning and pick one up in the afternoon.

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7 hours ago, DocWard said:

my father-in-law had some amazing custom dress shirts made

Petey got shirts and we both got bespoke cashmere coats for less than $100 (each - but still...).  Beijing 2008.

And yes, reweaving can be done without being noticeable but you're going to have to find an old Chinese tailor.  And if s/he's in this country, maybe take out a bank loan.

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We have a Vietnamese seamstress in one town and an American Caucasian lady in another village that can do it. I have had my nice Pendleton wool shirts, wool trousers and three piece suits repaired. They look great and work well in"fancy/dressy" Farthest North Idaho!!!   ;)

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About 5 years ago, some kid fell across a barrier in an art museum in Taiwan and punched a hole in a 1.5 million dollar 400 year old painting. If the conservators were able to repair that, I don't think a suit jacket would be a problem. It's just a matter of how much that jacket means to you, I guess.

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