I like buying clothing... in China
last weekend, Maddy and I went to get some custom made clothing at a tailor on the other side of town. This turned out to be one of the coolest experiences I've had in China, just about tied with buying all the DVDs.
basically, the place is a huge five floor building where each floor has literally hundreds of of little shops selling everything from electronics, DVDs, women's clothing, purses, accessories, knockoffs (mostly knockoffs), and men's suits. The top floor basically consists of 50 or 60 little booths that sell fabric, and then another few dozen booths, each with a teller inside who is ready and willing to make you a suit or any other clothing you want for a few bucks.
Last week, after Maddy had poured over dozens of huge glossy women's clothing magazines and located all the different dresses and garments she wanted custom-made (basically copied from the picture), we headed over to John Chi, the tailor who was recommended to us by a friend.
we each got measured, I chose fabric for my custom-made suit, and different fabric from a whole bunch of sample books for six button-down shirts. The suit cost about $170, and each shirt cost about $20. Maddy painstakingly described exactly what she wanted and ordered five garments.
we came back this past weekend for a fitting and the results were astounding. I personally haven't really anticipated quite how useful "make my own clothing for really cheap" thing could be. Turns out, good old John Chi could pretty much make anything Maddy or I threw at him, including jeans, dress pants, corduroy jacket, shorts, cargo pants, dress shirts, basically anything. So we spent a few hours going through the shops to find good material. The way it basically works is you find a pattern and material that you like, and you buy it by the meter. So, for example, I found some cool striped linen that I wanted to be made into pants, and got 2.4 m of it for about two dollars per meter. Maddy did her thing as well, and we came over to John with a whole bunch of bags filled with fabric.
the cost of making clothing breaks down into two costs: the cost of the material, and the cost of labor. Previously, we picked out material that the tailor himself was providing, but this time, we bought it ourselves for cheaper and with a lot more selection. So now, the only cost is the labor in creating clothing out of what we give him.
In the end, I ordered 10 pairs of pants (two corduroy, one loose-fitting corduroy cargo, two jeans, two dress slacks, two linens, and one black khaki), each will cost about $12 for labor, and the cost the material was about four or five dollars each. I also got a corduroy jacket, which costs about $70.
Maddy was there for several hours after I had left and she ordered about a billion other things too.
We have decided to basically overhaul our entire wardrobes with custom-made stuff from the tailor, and then buy a few really large suitcases when we head back to New York. For me this is pretty easy because I barely own any clothing as it is.
also, this tailor is so cool that he said he's going to keep our measurements on file and once we're back in New York, we can actually e-mail him stuff that we want made and he'll make it and FedEx it to us.
Custom-made clothing for cheap. Hell yeah!
basically, the place is a huge five floor building where each floor has literally hundreds of of little shops selling everything from electronics, DVDs, women's clothing, purses, accessories, knockoffs (mostly knockoffs), and men's suits. The top floor basically consists of 50 or 60 little booths that sell fabric, and then another few dozen booths, each with a teller inside who is ready and willing to make you a suit or any other clothing you want for a few bucks.
Last week, after Maddy had poured over dozens of huge glossy women's clothing magazines and located all the different dresses and garments she wanted custom-made (basically copied from the picture), we headed over to John Chi, the tailor who was recommended to us by a friend.
we each got measured, I chose fabric for my custom-made suit, and different fabric from a whole bunch of sample books for six button-down shirts. The suit cost about $170, and each shirt cost about $20. Maddy painstakingly described exactly what she wanted and ordered five garments.
we came back this past weekend for a fitting and the results were astounding. I personally haven't really anticipated quite how useful "make my own clothing for really cheap" thing could be. Turns out, good old John Chi could pretty much make anything Maddy or I threw at him, including jeans, dress pants, corduroy jacket, shorts, cargo pants, dress shirts, basically anything. So we spent a few hours going through the shops to find good material. The way it basically works is you find a pattern and material that you like, and you buy it by the meter. So, for example, I found some cool striped linen that I wanted to be made into pants, and got 2.4 m of it for about two dollars per meter. Maddy did her thing as well, and we came over to John with a whole bunch of bags filled with fabric.
the cost of making clothing breaks down into two costs: the cost of the material, and the cost of labor. Previously, we picked out material that the tailor himself was providing, but this time, we bought it ourselves for cheaper and with a lot more selection. So now, the only cost is the labor in creating clothing out of what we give him.
In the end, I ordered 10 pairs of pants (two corduroy, one loose-fitting corduroy cargo, two jeans, two dress slacks, two linens, and one black khaki), each will cost about $12 for labor, and the cost the material was about four or five dollars each. I also got a corduroy jacket, which costs about $70.
Maddy was there for several hours after I had left and she ordered about a billion other things too.
We have decided to basically overhaul our entire wardrobes with custom-made stuff from the tailor, and then buy a few really large suitcases when we head back to New York. For me this is pretty easy because I barely own any clothing as it is.
also, this tailor is so cool that he said he's going to keep our measurements on file and once we're back in New York, we can actually e-mail him stuff that we want made and he'll make it and FedEx it to us.
Custom-made clothing for cheap. Hell yeah!
posted by Jeffro @ 3:44 AM
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