The kidney belt isn't actually attached... we cut the front half off the kidney belt and replaced it with wide elastic and velcro. We put slits in the sid of the coat. The kidney belt sits outside the coat at the back, but feeds through the wide slits and goes under the coat at the front so the back of the coat snugs in to the body nicely, while the front of the coat hangs free. We added velcro to the inside of the slit that attaches to the elastic part of the belt so that it doesn't gape.