How To Make A Dress Bigger (Bust, Waist, Hips, Back)

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If you have a dress (or a client with a dress!) that is struggling to fit, you need this post! Here I will outline and direct you to resources to help you learn techniques to make your dress bigger, in different common problem areas!

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Making a dress smaller is a lot more straight forward than making it bigger. But expanding a dress to fit IS possible!

Most dresses that are only a couple of sizes too small can be enlarged in particular areas by letting out seams or adding fabric. Usually, gussets or panels are added, depending on the type of dress.

Use this article as a “table of contents” to guide you to the resources that will most help you alter your dress or gown. Each set of techniques are linked and divided by the area on the dress you wish to expand, bust waist, hips, and back. Some of these resources are my own, and many are from other seamstresses online.

**Note: If you are wanting to delve into the world of alterations, pattern drafting, and making your own clothing, I want to highlight this amazing resource full of all kinds pattern making guides that are great for mixing and matching styles to make your own garments! These guides are in depth and digital, great for intermediate-advanced sewers and seriously worth checking out**

How To Make A Dress Bigger In The Bust

A dress that needs to be bigger in the bust won’t zip up all the way, or it may barely zip up but be very restricting and pull the armscyes forward.

Typically the way to fix this problem is by adding a gusset. Here is a good video to show you about gusset making.

Here is how my wedding dress was altered by adding diamond gussets to the side seams (under the removable sash). This made the bustline fit perfectly!

The gussets were also added to the lining:

Here are some more ideas:

• The best way to make the bust of a dress bigger is to add diamond gusset to the side seams. This method allows you to add material without removing sleeves, and without changing the waistline or neckline.
  The gusset will start right under the armpit, and end at the waist seam. The gusset is a rounded diamond shape (or football shape)
• You can also make the bust bigger by adding side panels, but this alteration will involve altering the waist, bust, and sleeves as well. But if the entire dress needs to be bigger, than this could work fine for you!
• If your dress has a side zipper, you can add the diamond gusset to the back of the dress, or theoretically to the front of the dress. (although it won’t look very good unless it is intentionally designed with a contrasting fabric or covered up somehow. I once added a diamond gusset to the front of a dress that later had lace added over top of it to hide the seams)
• You can disassemble the bodice and spice it, then rebuild it with additional fabric or paneling to make it larger.

This is a dress that I altered by making a patchwork style top with panels and contrasting fabric (The larger bust and waist also meant I had to let out the gathers of the waist a bit.)

How To Make A Dress Bigger In The Waist

Any alteration you make to the waist will be more visible than one on the back or side seam bust area. Keep that in mind when choosing your technique. If your dress is for a one-wear occasion or a single photo, it might not matter as much.

• If your dress bodice has darts, you can let them out to make the waist bigger.
• If your dress has a gathered skirt, you can easily let it out by removing the elastic and replacing it with a larger one.
• Add a diamond gusset to the side seam with the widest portion of the diamond at the waist line.
• Here is another interesting tutorial you can watch to see how one tailor added several inches to a waist for her clients dress with boning.

Here is a dress that I altered that has four darts on the back with plenty of material that can be taken out:

And here is an example of a gathered waist dress that could have the elastic replaced with a longer one to make the waist bigger:

How To Make A Dress Bigger In The Hips

If you want to make your dress larger around the hips, then I am going to assume that your dress is a form fitting one. There are a few options for adding circumference to the hips such as:

• Adding panels, triangle gussets (or even godets) to the side (and/or back) seams, all the way down.
• Adding diamond gussets to the hip seams, just in the hip area (Here is an excellent video tutorial, she alters just the lining but you can do this on the actual dress as well)
• Letting out the side seams (Here is a guide that shows you how to know if your dress can be let out.)
• Detaching the skirt from the dress, adding a front panel, and reattaching it with a gather at the waist (Here is a great photo here to give you a visual of how to add panels to make the skirt bigger for the hips, look under the heading “Reason #2 – Your Dress is Too Small“)
• Detaching the skirt from the dress, shortening it by cutting off material from the TOP of the skirt, and reattaching it with a gather. (The bottom of the skirt is usually larger, and may have enough room for the hips)
• Purchasing matching material and converting the skirt portion of the dress into a ‘tiered’ ruffle style skirt to add width to the hip area

As you can see each of these options end with a very different dress.

When making a dress larger at the bust or waist, the completed alteration is somewhat hidden under the arm, which helps the dress still look nice. But when adding gussets to the hip seams, they will be totally visible. Unless you embrace that by using a different color of fabric or try to make it look intentional, or the dress is very dark black to help hide the seams, hip gussets might not look very good in the end. It depends on how professional you want the dress to look.

My personal preferences would be to add godets or re-fashion the bottom of the dress to be a ruffle tiered type skirt to make it look very intentional.

How To Make A Dress Bigger In The Back (At the zipper)

If your dress almost fits but just won’t totally zip up, your first instinct might be to assume that it needs to be bigger at the zipper.

But the truth is, if your zipper won’t close, the issue is (usually) best solved at the side seams, NOT the zipper!

(This is what happened to me with my wedding dress. It was just a size or two too small, and the side gussets as shown above were the fix to make the zipper fit!

You can diagnose if this is the case if the zipper seems like it would zip at the top, but just not at the middle where the bust line is.

Bring the zipper closed with your hands. If the top of the dress meets and would zip, then you should consider adding fabric to the side seams.

If the entire zipper is inches apart, then you will need to make your dress bigger at the zipper by converting it to a lace up back (like a corset) or adding a large panel to the back.

Here are some great tutorials on how to add lace to the back of your dress to enlarge the zipper area:

• How To Make A Dress Bigger By Adding A Lace Up Back With Grommets
• How to Add a Corset Back to a Dress That’s Too Small
• How to change a zipper to a corset back dress

And here are two resources to help you figure out how to add fabric to the zipper area:

• Adding panels to the back zipper
• Adding a fabric panel to the back of a dress

How To Fix Tight Sleeves On A Dress

Finally, if your dress is too tight in the sleeves and armpit (and potentially in the bust as well) there are several ways you can alter the sleeves to fit, which I have outlined in this guide all about fixing tight sleeves!

These techniques can almost all be used on tops as well as dresses.

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I hope these resources and thoughts are helpful to you, and give you some good ideas to help you learn how to alter your clothing!

The best way to learn to alter clothing is to practice! So start on something from the thrift store first, and don’t be afraid to mess up (because you might!) Then you can learn how to alter clothes for real, and for others!

Also check out my free peasant dress tutorial for a quick and cute dress project!

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