Ozempic wave boosts US cobblers and tailors as Americans tighten their belts

By Danielle Kaye and Alexander Marrow

NEW YORK, Oct 22 (Reuters) - Lorraine Scott has spent at least $300 to tailor her pants and jeans since losing 60 pounds on weight-loss drugs over the past year.

"Most of the things in my closet didn't fit anymore," she said. The 42-year-old Atlanta resident, who is known as Lorraine Kamesha to her YouTube followers, has opted to alter her favorite pairs of pants instead of investing in new ones as her weight fluctuates, while turning to fast fashion for the rest of her wardrobe.

US consumers taking weight-loss drugs like Novo Nordisk's Ozempic and Eli Lilly's Mounjaro have turned to cobblers and tailors as they try to save money while shedding pounds, motivated in part by a cost-of-living squeeze and rising out-of-pocket costs for the drugs as US employers increasingly drop GLP-1 coverage.

Over the past year, leather repairers have seen a spike in requests for their services due to rapid weight loss — not just for belts, but also for shoe and bag strap adjustments tailored to customers' trimmer bodies.

The uptick in demand for alterations underscores how weight-loss drugs are upending the retail sector, with some corners of the industry well-positioned to benefit while others struggle to adapt. About 11% of US adults are on GLP-1 drugs to lose weight, according to Gallup, forcing millions of consumers to look for affordable ways to revamp their wardrobes.

Cobblers Direct, an online shoe and handbag repair shop with 25 brick-and-mortar stores in Texas and a nationwide mail-in service, is seeing double-digit year-on-year growth in its belt-shortening business, said CEO Stephen Kelly.

The company, whose around 100 artisans will soon be operating from a new, nearly 30,000-square-foot warehouse in Austin, is now shortening as much as 500 belts each week, Kelly said. 

Customers, he said, have been walking into the stores with five or six belts slung across their shoulder. After getting a few more holes punched in, some have asked to keep the extra flap of leather as a "badge of honor."

"They'll pull their belt out and show how long their belt originally was. And then they tuck it back into their waistline," Kelly said.

About 80% of GLP-1 users are living in clothes that no longer fit, waiting six months on average before buying anything new, according to a survey of more than 700 US adults using weight-loss drugs by telehealth platform Trimi. Jeans are the most disrupted article of clothing, the survey found, with 90% of users lamenting poor fit.

After going off weight-loss drugs, people regain on average 60% of their lost weight within a year, researchers at the University of Cambridge found this year, adding to users' reluctance to go all-in on an entirely new wardrobe.

At family-owned Jim's Cobbler Concierge in Manhattan, customers last year started bringing in belts by the dozens, said client relations director CJ Burgos — a trend so sweeping that the store has dubbed it "belt-zempic." GLP-1 users are even seeing their feet shrink, Burgos said, prompting an uptick in shoe adjustments.

"It's helped the business, but we've also helped clients save," said Burgos, who has also brought in belts to shorten since losing about 60 pounds on Ozempic.

SECONDHAND SEIZES THE MOMENT, TOO

GLP-1 users are tightening their belts in more ways than one. The drugs' surging popularity in the US is also boosting discount chains, thrift shops and secondhand clothing platforms as many users refrain from splurging on new clothes while their size remains in flux.

Compared to other business tailwinds, what sets GLP-1s apart is "the scale and speed," said Alon Rotem, chief strategy officer at online thrift store ThredUp.

Shoppers are shifting to smaller sizes, especially when buying jeans: 43% of buyers who started above a waist size 28 are now buying smaller jeans than when they joined ThredUp, Rotem said.

Stitch Fix, an online personal styling service, is now offering more adjustable sizing and stretchy fabrics so that people who are rapidly losing weight have the "right apparel to help them bridge multiple sizes," said CEO Matt Baer. He estimated that at least 20% of the company's new clients are on a GLP-1 medication and looking for help finding new sizes.

"We've always known that resale and thrift are very popular choices for people in life transition," said Rotem of ThredUp. "As we see that there are many more people in life transition with the advent of GLP-1s, we're leaning into that."

(Reporting by Danielle Kaye and Arriana Mclymore in New York and Alexander Marrow in London; Editing by Christian Plumb and Aurora Ellis)