Spiral Pants and Short Legs

TheSnowQueen2013 · Jan 24, 2019

Hi everyone,

A bit of a silly question, but just curious: I have a pair of the ChloeNoel spiral pants. I love them, but have one issue: they're wayyyyy too long. They're over the boot, so they should be a bit long, but my legs are super short (I'm only 4'11") and the length causes issues when skating (they drag below the boot and have almost went under my blade.) Beyond this, they look quite silly since the spiral ruffles around the ankles (as most pairs of pants do on me), and it ruins the effect. Has anyone dealt with this? I do some sewing myself, but don't know how to take the legs in without ruining the purple trim at the bottom, or the general shape and cut. Maybe I'll need to see a professional tailor and see what they can do.

hanyuufan5 · Jan 24, 2019

Are these the ones you mean?: https://www.amazon.com/Chloe-Figure-Skating-Spiral-Pants/dp/B00515HNY0?th=1

Are they too big as a whole? Maybe you need a smaller size?

The spiral and trim would have to be removed and then sewn back on. Probably a professional should to it.

Until you fix them, please don't wear them! It's very dangerous for them to drag below your boots like that.

silver.blades · Jan 24, 2019

As a quick fix, you could try pinning the bottoms of the legging up so they don't catch under the blade while skating.

You probably just need a smaller size. Given your height, I'd look into child's sizes (I'm assuming your a teen/adult). They'll probably fit you better with regards to length.

sandraskates · Jan 24, 2019

I think they would have to be shortened from the bottom up - meaning the bottom contrast fabric would have to be removed, then followed by cutting off the excess leg fabric, and re-sewing the bottom contrast fabric back on.
That's shouldn't be too difficult if that bottom color is a separate piece of the lycra.

A issue that may crop up is that you're going to lose the width that makes the bottom of the pant, go completely over the boot. You'd also have to take in that bottom colored fabric that you removed before you sew it back on.

That's best I can do without actually seeing these pants.

NanaPat · Jan 24, 2019

Here's a video that shows how to shorten pants while preserving the original hem.

In your case, it's the colored band at the bottom that you want to preserve, but the principal is the same.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdXxRuIqBh4

There are several videos that show this technique, so you can google them, but I found this one short, easy to follow, and non-annoying. You can do the stitching by hand instead of by machine. That's probably easiest if your pants are tapered a lot and you have to ease-in excess material. After sewing, I would turn the excess material down toward the colored band rather than up toward the plainer pant, as it would show less that way.

Nimyue · Jan 25, 2019

silver.blades said:
As a quick fix, you could try pinning the bottoms of the legging up so they don't catch under the blade while skating.

You probably just need a smaller size. Given your height, I'd look into child's sizes (I'm assuming your a teen/adult). They'll probably fit you better with regards to length.

I definitely second this. My daughter wears them and they are super long for her, but they are tight enough that they just end up bunched up at the ankles. There's no way they would drag on the ice because the opening isn't large enough.

RoaringMice · Jan 25, 2019

Because of the flare involved in the Chloe Noel pants, just shortening them will destroy their line. You'd need to do a professional job to retailor them, which might - if you used a real tailor for this and they do it right - not be very cheap. Can you tailor clothing? Do you know how to recut bootcut or flared pants/trousers? It'd be the same technique, adding in cutting off and then reattaching the bottom band on each leg.

I have this same problem with skating pants. I'd love to wear them, but for my "width", I need a large or XL, which makes them a good 8" too long. It is tragic.

But it really is! I can wear them, as others mentioned, bunched up around my ankle/skate. They don't drift down. But I don't like how that looks, since I end up with so much fabric there.

There are some skating designers who make Chloe Noel style pants, custom. US Icewear does, for example, but only in black. Cara Anne Designs also does, with more variety of color and trim.

hanyuufan5 · Jan 26, 2019

I hope this isn't hijacking the thread, but I think it might clear up some things for OP as well as settle something that I've been wondering:

How in the world do the sizes for skating pants like Chloe Noel even work? Do they define "waist" and "hips" differently than the fashion world? What I know as the waist is the narrowest part of your midsection, and hips as around the biggest part of your butt. But going by that, I end up with enormous disparities between what size I should get. Using the usual way of measuring, in Chloe Noel, I'm an barely XS in the waist and almost too big for a L in the hips. In other brands, I'm barely an XS in the hips an, like, a children's M in the waist...? I definitely have a little more of an hourglass figure than most women/girls as small as I am, but not to that extreme, and I sure don't have the waist of an 8 year old child! :laugh:

Ic3Rabbit · Jan 27, 2019

hanyuufan5 said:
I hope this isn't hijacking the thread, but I think it might clear up some things for OP as well as settle something that I've been wondering:

How in the world do the sizes for skating pants like Chloe Noel even work? Do they define "waist" and "hips" differently than the fashion world? What I know as the waist is the narrowest part of your midsection, and hips as around the biggest part of your butt. But going by that, I end up with enormous disparities between what size I should get. Using the usual way of measuring, in Chloe Noel, I'm an barely XS in the waist and almost too big for a L in the hips. In other brands, I'm barely an XS in the hips an, like, a children's M in the waist...? I definitely have a little more of an hourglass figure than most women/girls as small as I am, but not to that extreme, and I sure don't have the waist of an 8 year old child!

I actually don't wear brands like the ones you mentioned because I have the shape of a woman, not a child LOL.

jf12 · Jan 28, 2019

Ic3Rabbit said:
I actually don't wear brands like the ones you mentioned because I have the shape of a woman, not a child LOL.

Totally agree, those brands can look weird on adults unless you are totally straight up and down like a kid. I am a 4 in lululemon which theoretically is the same as 14 in their kids’ line, ivviva - tried ivviva on once and the fit just really didn’t work for me due to the small hips and big waist in the pants.

hanyuufan5 · Jan 30, 2019

Oh, wow, so those are the waist and hip measurements by the usual fashion definition of waist and hips?

That could be your problem, OP. The brands might just not be shaped right for you, or me, or Ic3Rabbit, or probably most women over age 12. I bet they're a huge relief to those they do fit, though. 30 inches!? Any adult woman with 30-inch hips has my deepest sympathy with regard to finding clothes that fit. And I thought I had it bad with my 33-inch hips.

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