“If you want style, if you want knowledge about how to wear your clothing, if you want free personal styling about the rest of the stuff in your closet, we can help you out.”
–Brian Burnett, founder and owner,
Glenwood South Tailors and Alterations

by Jessie Ammons
photograph by Travis Long

Brian Burnett knows how to mix old and new: It’s how he first became interested in tailoring clothes, and it’s how he’s making his custom alterations business in Glenwood South relevant for busy customers. “We’re living in a time-pressed world,” Burnett says. “Just this morning I watched a guy holding an iced coffee in his left hand and his kid in the carrier in his right hand, on the phone. If he rips his trousers in the next 8 hours and he needs somebody to come pick those up, who’s he going to call?” The answer, Burnett hopes, is Glenwood South Tailors and Alterations.

Customers can call or text Burnett and his team of seven seamstresses to have their clothes picked up, repaired or altered, and delivered back. Customers can also come in for a fitting and have their altered clothes delivered to their home or office. Or, Burnett is proud to say, they can text photos of clothes in their closet for style advice “to see if it’s worth bringing in for tailoring.” The market “is still sort of flabbergasted,” Burnett says. “But people have been having pizza delivered for years. People here are now having $9 juices delivered. I mean, if you trust somebody with your pizza, why not trust them with your trousers?”

Burnett grew up in Raleigh, where he learned to love to sew as a child, altering vintage clothes he found with his grandmother at Goodwill. As a student at UNC-Chapel Hill, he worked as a stylist at Nordstrom, where he developed “an understanding of size and fit.” Postgrad, Burnett traveled abroad and fell in love with the “relationship-based” tailor shops on European street corners. He returned home to a career in digital marketing. Today, he’s combining all of it at Glenwood South Tailors, which he opened two years ago. “We don’t do a lot of really exotic stuff … but I know the details of quality fit, and fit based on lifestyle. What’s your profession, how will you wear this? It has to fit you.”

743 W. Johnson St., Ste. A
glenwoodsouthtailor.com