Alts - Union Square — Local services in New York

I had an awful experience with Alts. I had my wedding dress altered here and they did a truly terrible job. Please beware and go to a real dress maker.

Yes it’s convenient and the space is lovely, but they are sloppy and inexperienced. The top of my dress needed to be taken up, and I brought it in with the bra I would be wearing. It wasn’t properly done and I spent the whole night of my wedding adjusting the top of my dress, and my bra is showing in many of the photos.

In addition to the lousy top alternation, the seamstress suggested she remove a pleat in the back of the dress which she said looked “weird”. Removing it ruined the back of the dress completely and I had to have this work undone, and while they eventually refunded me for this particular piece of work, they were quite unkind about it.

Lastly my mother also had her dress altered here. She just needed the sleeves taken in. In taking in the sleeves, they added a tack which made the previously fine zipper unzippable.

Please don’t make my mistake and just find a real dress maker who is experienced and will make sure your dress fits well and is tailored properly. The front desk staff was originally friendly but if you need anything more than just being checked in,...

VERY BAD DO NOT GO HERE

I came in to get my suit tailored. They told me just a moment. After being repeatedly told “just another moment” it took … 45 minutes to be seen!

I come to pickup my suit. At 4:45 they tell me it will be ready at 5:45. I come at 5:45. They say “just a moment.” Then another moment. I’m writing this review at 6:45. I have been waiting for over an hour.

I lost 2h of time just waiting, on a work day. Completely preventable, all they had to do was give accurate times for when items would be ready. The issue was not the delay, but poorly setting timing expectations with customers.

Finally, when I surfaced this issue with the staff they were defensive, and said I was lucky to receive my clothes at all (due to how busy they were). Not only was this response low EQ in nature, it demonstrated a lack of understanding of the issue (thus, giving me low confidence that they will address the problem). Again — the issue is not that the clothes were delayed, it was that timing was not appropriately communicated with the customer.

In conclusion, if you place any value on your time do not use this...

I cannot recommend Christina at Alteration Experts (Union Square) enough. I came in feeling a bit anxious—I had three pieces I needed tailored but was worried about cost. I completely understand that their pricing reflects their craftsmanship, but I was still on edge and only expected to move forward with two items.

Christina worked her magic on the first two pieces and then encouraged me to show her the third, just to see what could be done. It was an off-the-shoulder dress with pleating and ruching that I never quite loved. I mentioned wanting to rework it completely, and she nailed it. She removed the off-the-shoulder portion, reshaped it, and took it in slightly. The end result is a 10/10—I truly feel like it’s a new custom piece. I will add a photo after the event!

Even better: I completely forgot I was a VIP, so the final price ended up being even more reasonable than I expected with the discount applied. I dropped everything off Friday and had it back by Monday—unbelievable turnaround.

This team is thoughtful, talented, and just gets it. I’m so happy I trusted Christina...