[Kate] A Vietnamese Tailoring Experience

Apparently one of the famous features of Vietnam is how there are so many tailors there, whose job it is to make an outfit custom to your size and other specifications.  I had heard this mentioned a little, especially by my dad, who kept taking about getting a suit made.  But honestly, I hadn't thought about it much before we arrived (here comes story time).

So there I was, sitting in the back of the van that had picked us up at the airport.  I was reading the Agatha Christie book (Death on the Nile) that I had started on the plane, and yes, I'll admit it, I was kind of tuning out the conversation in the rest of the van out.  So imagine my surprise when we pulled up at the curb in a street that had no hotel on it. I hastily put my iPad (on which I had been reading with the kindle app) in my backpack and clambered outside.

We were in a tailor shop, filled to the brim with fabrics.  The workers there sat our whole family down at at table, while I asked once (or maybe five times...) about what on Earth we were doing here.  I was told we were getting custom clothes made for us.  Grace and I were given an iPad with a lot of pictures of different dress styles on it.  We scrolled through them, or rather she scrolled through them while I watched.  Mostly Grace did all the work, finding dresses she liked, and I said if I liked it or not.  In the end, Grace found a relatively basic dress style she liked, and for me helped me choose (Thanks Grace!) a simple dress with a cool collar.  Meanwhile, next to us Dad and Cannon were finding designs and fabrics of pants and suit coats, and Mom was working on finding a dress for her.

These are some mannequins in the store, with lots of fabric choices behind them.

This is me in the store, during our second visit.

Grace showed an employee the designs we liked, and then we had to find the fabric we wanted used.  Upon hearing this, I was more than a little frazzled.  Could there be more choices?  Grace and I (honestly, mostly Grace) decided on a solid color for my dress instead of a pattern, and we made our way over to the wall covered in solid colors.  There were a lot of good choices, from pink to red to yellow.  But in the end we settled on a bluish green.  We told an employee, and then it was my turn to be measured.  While they did that, Grace picked out her fabric (a blue with yellow flowers).  After me she was measured.  By that time the rest of the family was ready to go to.  We were told to return the following afternoon to try on our clothes so adjustments could be made.

These are some of the fabrics you could choose.

The next day we came back in the early afternoon, and our clothes were almost done.  We went into a back room to try them on.  Mine was ready except it was missing some buttons, and Grace's was fully completed.  Dad's and Cannon's outfits had a few size problems, but otherwise worked, and Mom's dress just had a few loose ends (not literally) too.  After telling the workers, we were told our clothes would be sent to our hotel that night.

This is me holding up my unfinished dress.

These are my dress and Grace's dress hung
over this chair.

Such a cool experience!  Maybe a little less scary if I had known beforehand we were going there (AKA if I had been paying attention in the car), but still interesting!