Tailor CV Examples & Writing Guide

Below is a CV for a tailor with about eight years in the trade, moving from a dry cleaner's alterations counter to made-to-measure menswear. The name and shops are made up. The numbers are the kind you already know from your ticket book: garments a day, turnaround, remake rate, fittings.

Tailor hiring is usually done by the person who owns or runs the shop, not by HR. They read fast and they are looking for three or four things. Most will also ask you to fit or alter something before they hire you, so the CV is the ticket to the test, not the test itself.

• Which garments, which jobs. Menswear suits and trousers, womenswear, bridal and occasion wear, denim and leather, uniforms, theatre costume. A shop that does 200 suits a month wants to see "jacket sleeves from the shoulder" and "trouser taper"; a bridal shop wants "bustles" and "beaded fabric". Name the work.
• Speed and volume. Garments a day, tickets a week, turnaround time. This tells the owner whether you can run a counter alone on a Saturday.
• Fitting ability. Can you measure, pin and mark on a live customer, or do you only sew from someone else's marks? Fitters earn more and are harder to find; say it clearly if you can.
• Hand finishing and machines. Which industrial machines you run without help (lockstitch, blind hemmer, overlocker, buttonhole) and whether you can do hand buttonholes, pick stitching and felling.
• Reliability. Alterations shops live on promised dates. A remake rate, a returns rate or a clean record on express jobs is worth more than any adjective.

“When someone writes "18 garments a day, under 2% redo" on a CV, I know they have worked a real counter. I still hand them a pair of trousers to taper before I hire, but they have already jumped ahead of everyone who wrote "passionate about fashion".”

"Sewing" is not a skill on a tailor's CV; it is the job title. Break it down into the jobs, the hand techniques, the machines and the fabrics. Group them so the reader finds "blind hemmer" or "bridal" in one glance. Fifteen to twenty-five items is normal.

• Name machines by type and, if you know it, brand and model (Juki DDL-8700, Brother blind hemmer, Reece 101 buttonholer). It tells the owner you can sit down and start.
• Fabrics matter as much as techniques. Leather, beaded bridal fabric and fine wool each ruin a shop's day in the hands of the wrong person; list what you handle with confidence.
• Do not list "fashion design" or "styling" unless the job asks for it. A tailor's shop is hiring hands and eyes, not a designer.

Most tailors write duty lists ("performed alterations"). Shop owners want the garment, the job, the volume and the result. Seven rewrites from typical alterations and tailoring work:

Three lines at the top: what kind of tailor you are and for how long, the garments and jobs you handle, and one number. Plenty of people search for a "tailor career objective"; a career objective is fine when you are new to the trade, but even then, say what you can already do rather than what you hope to learn.

There is no licence or mandatory qualification to work as a tailor in the UK. Shops hire on skill, and most will test you. That said, formal training and apprenticeships do help, especially for made-to-measure and bespoke work, and here is how to present them.

• College courses: list the course name, the college and the year, plus what it covered if the name is vague ("Tailoring and alterations course, 9 months: pattern drafting, industrial machines, alterations, fitting"). Fashion degrees (for example a BA (Hons) in fashion or a foundation degree) count, but say which modules were hands-on construction.
• Apprenticeships and time under a master tailor: this is the most respected training in the trade. In England there is a bespoke tailoring apprenticeship standard (Bespoke Tailor and Cutter); check its current level and availability with your provider. Write it as a job: "Apprentice tailor, [workshop], 2019 to 2022: canvas construction, hand padding, fittings under supervision; completed 40 full-bespoke jackets."
• Manufacturer or factory training on made-to-measure programmes (measuring, order forms, fitting notes) belongs in a short training line; shop owners who sell that brand will recognise it.
• Self-taught tailors: skip the education section or keep it to one line, and let the portfolio and the skills list carry the weight. Offer a fitting or sewing test in your cover letter.
• Bespoke workshops (Savile Row and similar) split the work between cutters, coat makers, trouser makers, waistcoat makers and finishers. Name your role and the garments you make from start to finish, because a coat maker and a trouser maker are hired for different benches.

Plenty of working tailors started by sewing at home, doing alterations for friends, or coming from garment factories or costume departments. The problem is a CV with no paid alterations job on it. Fix it by making your work visible.

1. 1Put a skills section at the top with the specific jobs you can do to shop standard: blind hem, waist take-in, concealed zip, sleeve shortening. Leave off anything you have only done once.
2. 2Add a portfolio link (Instagram, a simple website or a shared photo album) with 20 to 30 clear photos of finished work: before and after, inside seams, hems, buttonholes. Owners will look.
3. 3Turn unpaid work into an entry: "Freelance alterations, 2024 to present: about 15 garments a month for friends, a dress agency and a local amateur theatre group; hems, taking in, zip replacement, costume repairs." Numbers make it real.
4. 4List related paid work with the transferable parts: sewing machinist (industrial machine speed), garment factory (construction knowledge), clothing retail (fitting-room experience, measuring customers), costume department (quick repairs, fittings).
5. 5Add any training, even short courses, with what was covered. Then close with a line offering a practical test.
6. 6Keep it to one page and skip the career objective about "passion for fashion". Use a short profile like the career objective example above.

• One page. Even a master tailor with 25 years rarely needs two; collapse old shops to one line each.
• Order: name and contact with portfolio link, three-line personal statement, skills grouped by category, experience with numbers, training. Put skills above experience if your job titles do not say "tailor".
• Plain format. Small shops print CVs and read them at the counter; big employers (department stores, uniform companies, bridal chains) run them through applicant tracking systems that choke on columns and icons. A single-column PDF works for both.
• Keywords to mirror from the advert, in its wording: "alterations", "tailoring", "fitting", "hemming", "made-to-measure", "bespoke", "bridal", "industrial sewing machine", "blind hemmer", "overlocker", "hand finishing", "pressing", "customer fittings". Department store adverts often say "alterations specialist" or "alterations tailor"; use their title in your personal statement.
• No photo of yourself, no date of birth, no full street address (town is enough). Photos of your work in a portfolio link, yes.
• Mention hours you can work. Alterations volume peaks on Saturdays, in wedding season (April to September) and before school proms in June and July; saying you can cover them is a real advantage.

If you are applying to a larger employer online, run the advert and your CV through the cvplex ATS checker to catch missing words like "fitting" or "blind hemmer" before you send it.