Hemline damage
Also: fallen hem · worn hem · hem wear
Hemline damage is wear along a garment's bottom edge — dropped stitches, unraveling, dragging scuffs, or a fallen hem hanging loose. Common on long jeans, coats, and dresses that brush the ground, it reads as both a structural and cosmetic flaw and pulls the grade toward the Good and Fair tiers.
How to repair a hem
Short answer: sometimes. It depends on what exactly you have and how long it has been there. The steps below say where it stops working rather than pretending it always does.
- 1Look at whether the hem is unpicked or the fabric is worn through. Unpicked resews; worn through does not.
- 2For an unpicked hem, press the fold back into place first. The crease line tells you exactly where the original hem sat.
- 3Slip stitch by hand for anything visible, or use hemming tape for a temporary fix that survives a handful of washes.
- 4For a worn edge, the fix is to take the hem up, which shortens the garment. On trousers that is often fine; on a dress it changes the proportion.
Stopping it happening again
Trouser hems wear from the ground, so length is the variable. A pair worn with flat shoes when it was hemmed for heels will destroy its own hem in a season.
How to spot it
- Run the whole hem through your fingers, feeling for loose or dropped stitches
- Check the back hem of long jeans for dragging scuffs and abrasion
- Look for a section of hem hanging down where the stitching has released
Grade impact
Hemline damage spans Structural Integrity (25%) and Cosmetic Appearance (20%). Light scuffing at the back hem keeps an item near Very Good (7); a fallen hem or frayed, shredded edge drops it to Good (6) or Fair (5).
Fixability
Usually repairable. A tailor can re-hem a dropped or worn edge, and fusible hem tape is a quick fix; a re-hem may slightly shorten the garment and should be disclosed as an alteration.
How to disclose it
Describe the hem state ('back hem scuffed from dragging, one section dropped'). Hems are easy to skip when photographing, so a dedicated hem shot heads off the 'didn't see that' complaint.
Hemline damage — frequently asked
- Is a dropped hem an easy fix?
- Usually yes. A tailor can restitch a dropped or worn hem, and fusible hem tape works as a fast home fix. A re-hem can shorten the garment slightly, so measure afterward and disclose it as an alteration when the length changes.
What if it does not all come out?
Most of the time some of it stays, and the leftover is what a buyer sees. A garment is worth what its condition says it is worth, so the sensible next question is how much this particular flaw moves the number.
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