The ranks of tailors, dressmakers and custom sewers are shrinking in the U.S. even as their skills and services are finding fresh demand. Fashion industry experts say younger shoppers are enlisting tailors and seamstresses to give off-the-rack purchases a custom fit, to revive secondhand finds or to extend the lives of their wardrobes. A veteran tailor in New York says weight-loss drugs like Zepbound and Wegovy have more Americans wanting their clothes resized. But there are fewer professionals doing alternations as skilled sewers age out of the workforce. The Fashion Institute of Technology in New York has teamed with Nordstrom to launch a training program to help address the growing labor shortage.
