Switching to apex cloth skeletal mesh at runtime

hey, i’m having a problem switching to an apex clothing model at runtime. basically I have two models, one with apex clothing and one without, I am using set skeletal mesh of the mesh component in my player blueprint in order to switch between them. what I have noticed is the transition between the apex cloth model and the normal model is very smooth, seamless. The transition back to the apex cloth model however is terrible. it causes a freeze in gameplay that would be totally unacceptable in a game. I have tried other methods of achieving what I am trying to do such as adding another skeletal mesh to the model and setting the visibility for both meshes, but because of the way I have set up my anim montages it would be difficult to get it to work properly. I have tried disabling cloth simulation before I switch and enabling it again after I switch back but it doesn’t seem to help at all. any thoughts on how I can get around this? thanks for your help.