Clothes alterations combine craft, art

By Charlie Mathews, Herald Times Reporter

MANITOWOC — For Barb Gelhausen, owner of The Seamstress for 10 years, spring and stress go together.

"Prom season makes a huge difference to me," Gelhausen said, knowing the county's eight public and parochial high schools will hold proms in the next six weeks. "The girls like to wait 'til the last minute."

On Wednesday, in her downtown Eighth Street store, Gelhausen held a fluorescent green prom dress. "The girl is straight up and down and wants the top to be taken in and the dress shortened," she said of the creation "that almost looks like a 1940s-era movie gown. I looked at it and said, 'This is red carpet.'"

Sometimes, however, Lakeshore area girls want the impossible … or, at least, the extraordinarily difficult.

Gelhausen said it usually isn't possible to create two dramatic alterations of a prom dress. If the bust line, for example, is made smaller, it then can't be let out.

The same holds true for something as straightforward as expanding the waist size of a men's pair of pants — two inches is typically the maximum.

Actually, hemming the length of men's pants is one of the most common projects of The Seamstress, which includes Gelhausen and her four part-time employees, Ruth Gass, Lisa Hunt, Kim Kerchefske and Gail Rhode.

"I always say I've met every short person in Manitowoc," said Gelhausen, noting no adult men's pants have inseams shorter than 28 inches. "A petite woman is considered 5 feet 4 inches (tall) and many adult women, especially elderly, are shorter than that. I shorten my pants all the time," said Gelhausen, all of 5 feet 2 inches tall.

Another common project at The Seamstress is patching holes in jeans. While young adults and teens often prefer the look of holes — at initial time of purchase from American Eagle, Hollister, Old Navy or other stores catering to the 12- to 25-year-olds — Gelhausen said adults usually want the holes covered.

"We use a free motion embroidery technique to create a strengthened fabric at the stress points where the holes and splits occur," said Gelhausen, whose space, 929 S. Eighth St., has been everything from Millie's Hat Shoppe to The Gay Bar to a skateboard and T-shirt shop, the "House of Go-Go," during the past century.

More than a dozen plastic storage bins are in the store of different colored fabrics, with others labeled black velcro, white velcro, bra parts, belting, cuffs and leather."

Her tools of the trade include mechanical sewing machines, designed in Germany but currently made in China.

"But you don't need an expensive machine to do beautiful work," said Gelhausen, who views her occupation and passion as a combination of art and craft. It just takes time.

"I have taught classes in sewing and it sometimes seem everybody wants to learn lots of new skills in six easy weeks, but it takes years," said Gelhausen, 59, who taught her two daughters and son to sew.

"My son is an airplane mechanic," she said. "He's been a mechanic since he was 3 and tore apart the first VCR we had that we were throwing away."

She said her son "didn't bat an eye" when he was asked to use a needle and thread to perform an airplane part repair.

Gelhausen herself swings a mean hammer, which she used on Wednesday to pound snaps back on a winter coat after replacing the zipper. "I'm up to here with winter clothes, doing about five to 15 zipper replacements a week," she said.

If possible, she expedites the repair, as it may be the customer's only warm-weather outerwear.

While Gelhausen replaced a zipper, Hunt was creating a rod pocket so a wall hanging could adorn a Green Bay physician's office wall.

"There's always something different to do," Hunt said. "I like the flexible hours, pleasant environment, like what I do, and the customers are usually nice."

Gelhausen is specialist in altering prom and wedding dresses, Rohde said, "There's not much I haven't done; enjoy doing it all." On the side, she repairs dolls and accessory clothes, from antique to modern.

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