How to hem jeans when you’re petite and keep the original hem

At 4′11″, hemming is pretty much part of buying pants. Even petite lengths can run long on us, and regular lengths? Puddle city.

The good part? A hem is one of the simplest alterations out there, and you can even keep that worn-in factory hem. Here’s how to pin them, what to tell your tailor, and how to DIY.

Before anyone cuts anything

• Be sure they’re keepers. Altered pants usually can’t go back.
• 100% cotton? Wash and dry them first. Cotton denim can shrink a little, mostly in length.
• Check the top half. A hem fixes length, not the knee or rise, so make sure the waist and seat fit first. Here’s how to check your inseam and rise.

Pin them with your shoes on

Sneakers and heels need different lengths, so wear the shoes you’ll pair with these most.

1. Stand tall and look straight ahead. Looking down changes how the pants hang.
2. Have someone fold the extra under and pin it, front and back, on both legs. Legs aren’t always the same length.
3. Walk around, then sit. Pants ride up when you sit, so a crop can end up shorter than planned.
4. Take them off and measure the inseam from the crotch seam to the fold. That’s your new number. Subtract it from the current inseam to get how much comes off.

Where should it land? A few common spots:

• Straight and slim legs: just grazing the top of your shoe.
• Wide legs and flares: longer, hovering just above the floor in your shoes.
• Ankle and cropped: right at or just above the ankle bone for ankle length, a bit higher up the leg for a crop.

Save your new inseam in your fit card so you can check listings against it.

Tailor or DIY?

A tailor is the easy choice for:

• Keeping the original hem on jeans
• Flares, bootcut and curved hems
• Thick or very stretchy denim
• Dress pants, which usually get a nearly invisible blind hem
• Side slits, cuffs and ankle zippers

DIY works for a raw hem on straight or wide legs, or the original hem if you have a sewing machine and a little patience.

For a raw hem, cut straight across, a little long to leave room for fraying. Use the first leg as a guide for the second. A wash fluffs up the fray, and a line of stitching just above the edge keeps it from creeping up.

The original hem, explained

Factory jean hems often have a washed, worn look that’s hard to fake: soft fading, and on some pairs a slightly twisted, wavy ridge called roping. Roping shows up most on hems sewn with a chain stitch machine, which many tailors don’t have. A regular new hem can look flatter and newer.

The fix is an original hem, sometimes called a euro hem. One way is the fold method: a tuck gets stitched right above the factory hem, and the extra goes inside. The other way, the factory hem is cut off and sewn back on higher up. Either way, there’s a thin seam just above the hem if you look closely.

Here’s the part that trips people up. A tuck uses fabric on both sides of the fold, so you only fold up half of what you want gone. To take off 2″, the fold is 1″ deep.

To try it at home:

1. With the jeans right side out, fold the bottom up on the outside, so the original hem sits upside down above the fold. Make the distance from the hem band’s stitched edge (the one nearest the fold) to the fold half of what you’re removing, all the way around. Pin.
2. Carefully try them on (pins!). The fold isn’t quite your new length, since the hem band will hang just below the new stitching. Too long or too short? Move the fold and pin again.
3. Sew through both layers along that edge, with a denim needle and matching thread. A zipper foot helps you sew close to the thick band. Go slow over the side seams.
4. Flip the hem down, tuck the extra inside and press.
5. Trim the extra and zigzag the edge, or leave it in case you want the length back. A few stitches at each side seam keep the tuck from flipping down.

How each leg shape takes a hem

Straight legs and wide legs that aren’t flared are the easy ones. The width barely changes near the bottom, so even an original hem lines right up.

• Slim, skinny, tapered and mom: easy, but the leg widens going up. A regular hem ends up a little wider at the opening. With an original hem, the factory hem is narrower than its new spot, so a tailor may take in the leg a touch to match.
• Flare and bootcut: the tricky ones. The widest part is right at the bottom, so every inch you take off trims the flare. The factory hem is also wider than its new spot, which makes an original hem harder. A little is usually fine. A lot? Look for a petite or short length first, or pop the listing’s inseam into the hem finder to see where it lands on you.

What to tell your tailor

Bring the shoes, put it all on, and say:

• “Original hem, please.” Or “euro hem.”
• Where it should land, like “just touching the top of my shoe” or “right at my ankle bone.”
• Trim or fold: cut the extra off, or leave it inside so it can be let down later? Folded is a little bulkier, especially if you cuff.
• For a regular hem: ask them to match the thread to the rest of the jeans. Lots of jeans use gold or orange topstitching.

Try them on before you leave, shoes and all.

Happy hemming, friends! xo, Miranda