3. Seams

The seams of a garment are generally a fail-proof indicator of its quality, because although they are hugely important for the durability and shape of a garment, the average shopper will typically pay little attention to them. That’s why low-budget manufacturers like to save money and time by skipping the extra seam work it takes to turn a garment from something that holds up and looks fine on the rack into a durable garment that will retain its shape and structure over time. Here are a few ways to check the quality of the seams on a garment:

General properties

First, look over the main seams of the item. Are they straight or crooked? Neat or messy? Stray threads, loose stitches or areas that have been stitched over multiple times are all bad signs. There should also not be any obvious needle holes in the seams. These were likely created by a needle that is too large for the fabric, i.e. a basic manufacturing mistake that weakens the seam over time. To check the strength of the seam, try pulling on the fabric a little on either side. If the seam separates, it was poorly manufactured.

Next, make sure that all seams on the fabric lie completely flat without puckering. The seams of a garment should never break up its silhouette and should ‘seamlessly’ integrate into the piece.

If a garment is patterned, check whether the patterns line up at the seams. High-quality brands will make sure a patterned garment looks like it consists of one piece of fabric, low-quality brands will usually skip that extra step to save money.

Type of seam

Another indicator of quality is the type of seams the manufacturer used to connect the individual pieces of fabric. As a rule of thumb, you want neat, secure, reinforced seams instead of a few flimsy stitches. However, depending on the item and also the role of the seam within the fabric, you’ll need to look out for slightly different things:

Start with the inside of the garment: A very common way to sew seams is to serge them. A serged seam has that distinct zig-zag pattern, and is one of the fastest, cheapest ways to seam a garment. Now, even though serged seams are not particularly strong, they are completely fine for finishing edges on garments like t-shirts and lightweight shirts, particularly when the edge is folded under first (like on the top right picture). What they are no good for is load-bearing seams, i.e. any seam that connects two pieces of fabrics, like side seams on trousers, shoulder seams and also the hemlines of items made from heavier fabrics. Because load-bearing seams are under constant tension they should be created using a more secure method, e.g. using double stitches (two rows of stitches close to each other), French seams (the fabric edges of each piece of fabric are folded under and then sewn together) or bound seams (the fabric edges are each folded under and then enclosed in a strip of fabric, like on the top left picture).

Now, onto the outside of the garment: In general, high-quality manufacturers will want to hide outer seams as much as possible (unless they are a part of the design). Load-bearing seams should all be neat, secure (do the pulling test) and not too noticeable. A stable, secure hemline is also crucial for the shape of a piece, so finish off your seam inspection by checking out the lower edge of the piece. The hemlines of lower quality garments will usually just be folded under and sewn in place. In that case you would be able to clearly see a line of stitches on the outside and serged zig-zag lines on the inside. Like I said above, this type of seam is fine for lightweight items, but for things like jackets, trousers and skirts, that depend on a strong hemline to retain their shape, you are better off with a bound seam (top left image) or an invisible finish (which uses a blind hem stitch to attach the hemline to the garment and is barely visible from the outside).

4. Tailoring

Our bodies are not two-dimensional, that’s why almost every garment needs a little tailoring to make it fit the contours of our shape. To what extent a brand takes the extra time to do this, says a lot about the overall quality of its collection. Now, more than any other point in this guide, tailoring obviously has a strong individual component. Although a number of things are universal (e.g. there should always be a back seam in jackets), a major portion of what ‘good tailoring’ means to you will depend on your body shape. What works for you might not work on your friend and vice versa, so make sure you always assess the tailoring of a garment from both an objective (best practices of tailoring) AND a subjective perspective (whether it suits your body shape). Let’s start with a few objective properties of good tailoring :