I am not, by nature, a confrontational person. But there is something clothing-related that forces me to confront strangers, and in fact in some ways to criticise them. It hasn’t always gone well.
Some brands use white basting thread to sew a small tacking ‘X’ on the vents of their coats. You know the one – it’s there so the nicely pressed vents don’t get all crumpled in transit. The vent is the first thing that could splay open, and crease.
Big brands do this much more than small ones (like those covered on PS). They have larger volumes, and often go through more pairs of hands (eg from a factory to a regional warehouse, to a local warehouse to a store).
The problem is, customers don’t necessarily know what the stitch is for, and sometimes the staff don’t either. They should really remove the stitch before wrapping up the purchase, but they sometimes don’t. And with an online order that whole stage gets skipped anyway.
So people walk around on the street with a big white cross on their coats that shouldn’t be there. And even more painfully for a PS reader, the vents will bow out in an odd way because they’re fastened at the bottom.
But should you ever tell them?
I have done, a couple of times. The first time I did it, the person was very nice and appreciative. I was polite and even apologetic in my approach, I told them in the same way I’d tell someone that their laces were undone – like you assumed they’d want to know and just hadn’t noticed, rather than like a lecture on etiquette.
The second time, however, the person was rather taken aback and told me to go away. Or rather, said ‘f*** off!’. It put me off doing it again, and I never have.
But when I was talking to family members over Christmas, most of them weren’t aware of why the stitches were there, and said I should definitely tell people. That they would too.
The stitches are very easy to remove, by the way. They’re deliberately big and loose in order to make it easy. In fact, arguably it’s worse when the stitches have come loose through wear and just hang there, like a pair of undone shoelaces. I’m not sure how people don’t notice that.
To remove them you can just use regular scissors because the stitch is so big, but a stitch picker (above) is a useful thing to have – for this or similar jobs. They only have a sharp edge on the inside of the fork, which reduces any chance of catching the cloth.
This is particularly useful if you want to do things like remove the label from a scarf or pocket handkerchief. I usually do this with handkerchiefs – because otherwise they always find a way show out of the pocket – but not always with scarves.
The key here is to make sure you cut the stitch that attaches the label to the handkerchief, rather than the one running around the edge of the handkerchief. If you cut of the stitch the end furthest into the label it’s usually OK.
Some bespoke tailors do leave basting stitches on parts of a finished jacket when they ship it. This is often with tailoring that is folded, rather than hung inside a hanger box. The aim is the same – to keep parts that could move around from getting creased.
You can usually remove these in the same way as other basting stitches, just cutting the thread and pulling it out. If one end stays put, it’s because it has a knot securing it at that end. So find the knot and pull from there.
I should mention the fact that Maison Margiela uses basting thread like this as a decorative detail, deliberately sewing through to the back of the garment so four stitches show. No one’s suggesting those should be cut off.
But you should – absolutely – cut off the brand label that sometimes appears on the sleeve of a suit. This was introduced to make it easier for department stores to identify brands on a rack, and is meant to be removed at the point of purchase, in the same way as the stitches on a vent. But some people leave them on, thinking it’s meant to be there and/or that it’s a great way to show people how expensive your suit is.
That one, however, is probably best not to tell people about.
