To alter, or how not to alter, that is the question

My primary and so far unrelenting memory of the scratchy whirring and knocking of a sewing machine has been the expected performativity of getting the clothes I wear altered. Introduced I was to the act of altering first too before the needle and thread. And through this introduction, I was conditioned to decipher that altering is meant for and remains restricted to the work of tightening clothes without affecting the original construction of a garment. However, after many an annual ordeal of getting the clothes I wear involuntarily altered, and what I experienced as tightness, I came to learn that such altering had not much to do with fixing the garment but had much to do with fixing how my body— perceived as my “femininity”— shows up or not through what I wear.  

To alter, particularly in marketplace clothing practices, means “to change in character or appearance” (1530s) and “change in ready-made clothes to suit a customer’s specifications” (1901 - present). The distortion of what change here implies and what this work of changing entails implores me to think: Can a practice of altering clothes reinforce the gender binary? If so, when and how? And what might this unpacking allow me to do as a maker in my own practice of working with and unmaking/ remaking/ making clothes?  

My inspiration to produce this audio-visual emerges from my ongoing research interest connected to subverting the gender binary in makerspace apparel design pedagogy and draws from my body of work in which I trace the White-eurocentric history of anthropometry in contemporary garment construction and manufacturing practices. Through movement mine and with the sewing machine, in this piece, I explore my experiences of wearing clothes that have been altered for me as per standard measurements marked for garments traditionally understood as female clothing. I interrupt this logic by imagining measurements away from these standard markers. I also interrupt arriving at solutions monolithic and/or binary-reinforcing. What I don’t interrupt is my curiosity to ask myself and ask again: To alter, or how not to alter, that is the question— or is that the question?