Whether shortening the hem on a pair of pants or beading an exquisite dress for a pageant queen, master tailor Hanna Chung has it all sewn up.
Since moving to the U.S. from Korea 37 years ago, she’s developed a reputation for solving any fitting problem one stitch at a time. Recommended by Macy’s and bridal stores like BHLDN, she works from an unassuming store in Naperville helping a wide array of customers who travel across the country to see her.
Enter her shop and you’ll see the walls are a patchwork of photos from delighted beauty contestants and brides. Although she doesn’t make things from scratch, she can turn yellowing wedding dresses into something modern and meaningful.
“I’m really worn out after each job,” she says, “but when each job is finished it takes the weariness away, it gives me joy.”
Chung moved to the area in 1984 from Seoul with her family ,who owned a retail clothing store.
“When I came here, I started college and did a lot of English courses,” she said. “Then I studied fashion design and home economics.”
Chung began designing her own dresses when she was 10 years old.
“I did the design and gave the fabric to a tailor to make them,” she said. “My mom didn’t know how to sew a button, but I was excited by making my own designs.”
Life as a businesswoman wasn’t always easy. She’s owned Brookdale Tailoring for 13 years, but prior to that ran a café.
“As a first-generation immigrant, I had no one to rely on and I lost everything,” she said.
When she was forced to declare bankruptcy, she turned to her faith to guide her.
“On Sept. 30 I closed my old business and seven months later opened this one,” she said. “I read the Bible because I had to solve my own problems and God showed me what to do. He opened my eyes.”
The new business combined dry cleaning with alterations, but today the only dry cleaning the company does is wedding dress preservation. Recommendations are by word of mouth, and that word has spread across the country.
“It began when Bridal Elegance in Ottawa sent me a bride,” she said. “They also sell pageant dresses, offering sponsorships across 23 states. Miss Illinois USA came to see me with a $12,500 dress and I was happy to help.”
Wedding and pageant dresses can take hours of work to fit. Chung says that just 15 beads can take an hour to take off and sew back by hand. She’s so experienced that she has no fear in pulling expensive dresses apart.
“I’m not scared because I’ve studied, and have sense and experience,” she said. “A wedding dress has to fit the bride’s shape. I give ideas that will make her look taller and thinner. I love a feminine look. I give my heart to the work I do, it’s not only about the money.”
Brides have come from as far as San Francisco for multiple fittings.
“I’ve taken out corset backs and replaced them with zippers when a dress is too big,” she said. “I’ve had a couple of weddings that were postponed by the pandemic. The brides decided on simple weddings in their momma’s back yards to be followed by a party the following year. Now we’ve got to that point, they are pregnant so one dress had to have an extra eight inches added to accommodate the baby!”
Chung says there is no alternation she cannot make. In order to shorten one wedding dress, she had to raise the waistline by removing delicate lace and beading, pulling up the fabric and sewing the decorations back on. The work is always done by hand.
“The hardest was a zig-zag hem, that was really hard work,” she said. “When the bride’s mother saw the result, she cried because it looked so good.”
Tears are not unfamiliar in Brookdale Tailoring. Chung recalls one full figure bride who sobbed, saying: “In my whole life I’ve never looked slim like this.”
Chung is happy to share her expertise with others. She’s visited several bridal boutiques to teach other seamstresses how to do alterations. She’s particularly proud of her work remodeling old wedding dresses for new brides in the family.
As one mother-in-law wrote: “I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the time and effort you put into transforming my 29-year-old wedding dress into the gorgeous new wedding dress my daughter-in-law envisioned. I don’t think any other seamstress would have had the talent or patience to make the changes she wanted or to fix the yellowed lace inserts, but you did.”
Hilary Decent is a freelance journalist who moved from England to Naperville in 2007.
