David and Natalya's Around the World Tours David and Natalya's One Year Trip Through Asia

Custom Made Clothes for Two May 17, 2005

Dave

Hoi An, Vietnam

Custom Made Clothes for Two

Hoi An is a beautiful beach town with lots to see and do, but it is really known for one thing, it's tailors. This place is really amazing you basically give the tailor shop a picture of anything you want, or pick something out from one of the many catalogues or GQ's that they have lying around and for a few US dollars you come back later to pick up an exact replica of what you wanted custom made in your size. They can make virtually anything from swimsuits, to suits to shoes.

We thought we might get just a few things made and started our first day here exploring the many tailor shops to get a sense of what things cost and what type of things could be made. Prices for a suit were around $30-40 US and dress shirts ran from $5-7 dollars each. We decided to start off small getting just one shirt each made at 2 different tailor shops to see how the quality was. I gave the tailor shop one of my favourite shirts to copy, and the replica they made was actually better than the original shirt. When our stuff came back the next day we were both very impressed and proceeded to have 3 suits each made, about 15 shirts each and a few other items we had picked out of magazines and catalogues over the next 2 days.

Our most interesting experience came one evening at about 10pm while we were in a place called Nana's Tailor Shop. As we were being measured for suits all of the power in Hoi An went out, which seems to be a fairly regular occurrence, and the shop became pitch black, so dark you could not even see your hand in front of your face. It took a few minutes for Nana and her husband to find a lighter and then a candle to provide some light. A few minutes later when it became clear the lights would not be coming on soon, Nana's husband pulled up his moped to the front of the shop and turned on his headlights so the fittings could continue! Unfortunately tailoring by headlights turned out to not work so well, and it took 3 fittings at this shop before stuff could be made to fit.

Also with no power, there was no way to call a Taxi, so the ride back to our resort was on the back of two mopeds from the tailor shop owner and a friend down dark and bumpy streets as power was off in the whole city. Luckily about ½ way through our ride everything came back on and a huge cheer could be heard out on the streets.

Other than that most of our days in Hoi An were spent relaxing enjoying our great resort and the beautiful beaches.

Dave