At Virginia Military Institute, there’s a top team providing high-quality services, support, and supplies to keep the Corps of Cadets running smoothly and looking sharp. In this series, Corps Contributions will take a look at VMI Auxiliary Services, and the people that power VMI behind the scenes. 

LEXINGTON, Va. Oct. 17, 2023 — It takes three years to train as a tailor in the tailor shop at Virginia Military Institute. Those who work in the shop only work on a certain garment for a certain portion of the year, starting with blouses in the fall, tailor shop manager Cindy Hartbarger said. Then they move on to overcoats, but it might be an entire year before you touch either one of those items again, she said.  

“The first year, you're learning. [In] the second year, you will remember part of it. The third year, by the end, you should know the whole process,” she said.

In the summer, those in the tailor shop are stripping and putting chevrons on coatees and blouses. They open up the sleeve, put the strip in, then sew it back up. It’s all done by hand — in fact, the majority of the stitching and sewing is done by hand.  

Hartbarger is in charge of 10 tailors who work year-round at mending cadet and staff clothing. She said it’s been a challenge to fill spots in the shop, for a couple of reasons. It takes a long time to train individuals, but also sewing and tailoring is a skill that a lot of people don’t know, have, or want to learn.  

“That's why I have so much trouble finding people to work in here because it's not a normal place to work. Sewing as an art is dying because there are no people to do it,” she said. “So we're blessed that we can come in here and do this every day. We've learned a skill. Most people don't know we can fix stuff that not regular people can do because we've learned something.” 

When Hartbarger took over the shop more than a year ago, she implemented some changes and the process is more factory-like.  

“We take the sleeves apart and somebody will stripe it, then somebody else will do the seam up, and somebody else will finish it,” she said. It’s more of an assembly line where the garment is passed from one station to the next.  

Striping means they are adding different class stripes to the coatees. Rats have no stripes. 1st Class cadets have three stripes, 2nd Class have two stripes, 3rd Class stripes have one. In order to do this, they have to split the seam of the coatee along the sleeve, place the stripe in, sew it back up, then sew the lining up. They do this for every cadet prior to them coming back for the fall semester.  

Everything they do in the tailor shop is tedious work that takes time and concentration. To put a stripe on could take half an hour. A chevron would take an hour, but the higher the rank, the longer it could take — potentially up to two hours.  

The longest alteration? The tails on a coatee can take about three hours, Hartbarger said.  

“You actually take every piece of the bottom of that coatee apart,” she said. “It's like a mind game because it’s like a puzzle. You have to figure out which piece goes to what when you take it apart. When you take it apart it's hanging by threads and then you have to put it all back together.” 

The day after matriculation, alterations start. The fittings are done at the VMI Military Store and then sent down to the tailor shop. That’s the first batch of major alterations. Then at the end of September, the blouses for rats are due. After that, they’ll start fitting the rats for their wool pants and overcoats, which will be worked on until November. The coatees are due in February. By March, overcoats will be turned in for repairs and the shop will begin to prepare for commencement.  

They aim to do a total of 30 alterations a day, but it all depends on what is being worked on and how time-consuming the alterations are, and also on walk-ins. Cadets are aware of the tailor shop. If they split a seam, get a hole, or something like that, they head to the tailor shop to get their uniforms fixed .  

Her advice: start slow. It’s all a learning process. If you try to speed through it, you’ll mess it up. It’s a point of pride for Hartbarger and her staff to see the cadets wearing the uniforms they had their hands in. She likes them to look sharp. 

“It's great to see what work we've done and how nice they look in their uniforms,” she said. “We critique it because we know what it's supposed to look like. We might even stop and say ‘hey, you need to take your pants and get them refitted or your blouse is too tight … get it fixed!’ because we like to make it look nice. That's our goal, to make it nice and professional.” 

Hartbarger has worked at VMI for nearly 25 years. She started in laundry services, then the military store, then the post office. She’s been at the tailor shop for about 17 years. Even though she does the administrative side of the tailor shop, she’s still mending clothes. One of the first things she did when she took over as manager was move her sewing machine to her new desk. Now, she mends, emails, answers calls, and manages the team.  

“I love my team. I have the best team on the hill,” she said. “We work together, we laugh, and when somebody hurts, we cry. We're family. And that's the part I absolutely love. We have been short people for several years and we've had to work extra, extra hard and we've jumped in and done what we've had to do.”

Laura Peters Shapiro
Photos by Lexie West
Communications & Marketing
VIRGINIA MILITARY INSTITUTE