Weekend FT. How to spend it: The seamstress, the fixers, the cook and his chicken.

“On a grander scale altogether, you could call the super efficient Julia Dee of Designer Alterations. You can either make an appointment to visit her 2,000 square foot studio in Battersea, south London, or she will come to you, however late (for £40 per hour plus travel costs). Dee employs eight to 10 professional tailors, each with particular skills, who will alter, patch, yarn, knit and clean anything from a wedding dress to an entire winter wardrobe – hats and shoes included – which they will store until the following year.

"A client will have an item that needs to be altered,” says Dee, with the same earnest tone bankers use when discussing billion-dollar flotations, “because she may have short arms. Well, of course, nothing she buys will ever fit perfectly. When she discovers us, she’s ecstatic; she realises that you don’t have to live with sleeves that are always too long.”