KARACHI: There was a time when every home here had a well-oiled fully functional sewing machine always in good working order to be able to mend or make small alterations to clothing materials. Maybe you ripped a seam on your shirt which needed mending, maybe you lost weight and needed a shirt to be refitted by tightening or adding more pleats, or maybe it was the opposite of that and you gained a few kilos and needed your clothes loosened. Whatever the need, it could always be easily taken care of at home because someone or the other there knew how to operate a sewing machine.

But these days people run to the tailor for even the smallest of alterations because they don’t know how to operate sewing machines. Even if they do have a machine at home it is rusting away at the back of a store or an attic or maybe packed away and placed on top of a cupboard. Perhaps it belonged to your grandmother or great grandmother or an aunt who no longer lives with you and hasn’t cared to send for her old sewing machine because after getting married she too became dependent on tailors.

There was a time every mother made sure that her daughter knew how to sew. And it was not just for doing the small alterations but knowing how to actually sew entire clothes such as shirts, trousers, suits, pillow covers, etc. Interest in little girls was developed by letting them design dresses for their dolls initially. As they developed confidence, they went on to stitching for themselves and family members too. The bookstalls always had pattern and design books to choose various styles from. Maybe copy a sleeve, cuff or a collar or neck design. And when marrying off daughters, parents made sure that a sewing machine was part of her dowry.

The ladies then also used to make their own changes to the sewing machines they received from their parents. If it was a hand-operated manual machine, they had the choice of having it fitted in a work table with a mechanical pedal added for operating it with the feet, or having it fitted with a motor so that the hand wheel no longer required the hand to keep turning it for stitching. Then those who could afford it directly went for the electric sewing machines.

The market was full of second-hand or reconditioned sewing machines made in Germany, Italy, Japan or China. The most well-known of these markets for sewing machines was and still is located in Saddar. “There was a hotel here by the name of Gulzar Hotel but now after it was demolished its owner has built the Gulzar Market here,” says one sewing machine shop owner there.

The shops have all kinds of sewing machines on offer along with things such as plastic and wooden sewing machine covers, jars full of bobbins, stitching foots, needles, stitch openers, springs, etc. There are also bottles of machine oil. “Well, both manual as well as electric sewing machines need oiling or they will rust and jam up,” says another shop owner with a variety of machine oils lined up in his showcase. When asked why an electric machine would also need oil, he smiles and explains: “The oil goes into the mechanical, machine parts not the motor.”

At yet another shop, the shopkeeper says that they almost never have a new electric sewing machine as all are second-hand or reconditioned. “But the manual machines such as the popular and time-tested Salika is brand new,” he says, adding that manual machines cost from Rs4,000 to Rs7,300. “But the cheaper ones among them will give trouble with the stitching of certain materials such as jersey or other stretchable material,” he points out.

“Meanwhile, the second-hand sewing machines include fine brands such as Pfaff, Juki, Brother, Riccar, Toyota, etc, costing you from as low as Rs5,000 and up to as high as Rs10,000,” he says. “But if you are looking to buy the new electric or computerised sewing machines it will have to be the Singer, which is manufactured in China,” he says.

An older shop owner listening to the exchange then laughs. “Do you see any lady interested in buying sewing machines here today?” He asks, then adds: “It is the age of readymade garments. People, especially, ladies no longer come here to buy sewing machines, which are mostly bought by tailors and garment factory owners now.”

Published in Dawn, August 5th, 2018