November 20, 2003

The oft-repeated cliche that diamonds are a girl’s best friend has changed. Now, a good tailor is a girl’s best friend, writes Neda Mulji

For about a decade or so we have seen women sprout up from every nook and cranny of our society, attempting to start a business of designing clothes. Many of them realize that they are grossly under-qualified, but insist that they have a “natural instinct”. The instinct obviously refers to a vague sense of aesthetics, with a complete and shameless disregard for designing techniques, cuts and style.

The day this natural instinct eggs them on and tempts their entrepreneurial (read materialistic) spirits, a room in the house goes under construction to prepare a makeshift workshop to house the kaarigars who are procured through the references of various friends and family members.

The three-odd kaarigars (one of them is usually a well-reputed tailor) are chosen very carefully, as the growth of the business ultimately depends on how skillfully the kaarigars copy off designs from a host of magazines, both local and foreign, not to mention those they steal from highly reputed professional designers.

Regular trips are made to the market to buy fabric, thread and accessories, as dictated by the talented kaarigars. These trips to the market are normally described as the ‘hectic’ and time-consuming aspect of the business. Later, book-keeping is quoted as a ‘hassle’ but it doesn’t come into the picture until orders have grown substantially.

Having prepared a wide array of samples, each in a different price range, the designer is ready to carve a niche in the market. But not before she has smacked on a label flaunting her name in a neat, unassuming font on each of her masterpieces.

The first few joras are usually bought by extended family, as a goodwill gesture and in a bid to encourage the work of the entrepreneur. Then comes along a twenty-something bride-to-be who is desperate to pick a few joras at a reasonable price that she can wear to a series of dinners after the wedding. The designer perceives this as her breakthrough achievement and keeps reminding her customer to send along all her friends.

If she’s lucky, the friends will be tempted and lured into ordering a couple of joras for the wedding functions, while the designer begins to dream of greener pastures when she will branch out into her own range of purses and matching shoes, in the not-so-distant future.

The ball keeps rolling, and more kaarigars are hired to fulfil the diverse demands of a growing clientele. If the designer feels that the mainstream market is not yielding enough dough, she can explore the option of packing off suitcases of clothes to a friend in the US who will sell the joras to her Pakistani clique, and take a cut out of the inflated rates.

In the larger picture, one would assume that our traditional tailors would lose their significance as women flock to ‘makeshift’ designers who not only stitch clothes to their liking, but also become social buddies to discuss weight problems, in-laws, stubborn teenage children, etc.

However, it seems that most women have a unique, long-standing relationship with their tailors that they continue to maintain despite the numerous benefits of going to these designers. In fact, most women share a very comfortable relationship with their tailors who have perhaps stitched little ‘frocks’ for them as babies, and seen them bloom into pretty young ladies.

The tailor is not only skilled at stitching a piece of clothing to perfection for a reasonable charge, he also understands the changes in women’s sizes, and often feels free to caution them against weight gain. The relationship is cosy enough for him to comment on which daughter in the family is the prettiest and most stylish, and he often divulges information about broken engagements, marital problems and hostilities among extended family members.

Joint families that share the same tailor are the latter’s gossip jackpot. And it seems that ‘makeshift’ designers will not replace traditional tailors, for as long as this intimate relationship of mutual convenience and trust exists between tailors and their clientele.

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