You need three days in Hoi An if you want clothes made.
Day 1. Arrive in Hoi An, probably on the overnight bus from Hue. Walk around, get a lay of the land. Almost all of these shops are the same, and there are HOARDS of them. Innumerable. Most of them are selling CRAP. Crap fabrics cut to your size. I'm happy I spend a good deal of my time playing around in the garment district. "Vietnamese silk" is not silk at all. Get ideas. Get the fever.
Day2. Start in the morning. Early. Every store you go into, you have to go through magazine after magazine, getting inspired, narrowing vision. I started at Yaly Couture, the nicest shop with the nicest fabrics, by far, I thought. I leafed through magazines for two hours. Hint: If you leton thatyou're hot as hell, thennicer stores will bring you iced bottled water andturn the fan on you, knowing that keeping you cool in Vietnam is motivation enough.
Then you pick fabrics. There are tons to choose from in a nice shop.
Then you negotiate price. After two hours of this, you might not even be able to negotiate to something affordable. The nicer stores are kind about this. The ones that are not so nice get embittered.
Then they measure you.
Lather, rinse, repeat. Which you have to do, in order to diversify your portfolio, or so to speak, in case the place you pick sucks.
Which is sometimes the case.
Do not pay a large deposit. Nicer stores won't even ask for one at all.
Day 3
Get fitted in the morning. Get alterations. Go back inthe afternoon. Repeatuntil finished or until you have to get the hell out of dodge.
For example, here was my day 3:
I go to Central Market (Ly Ly store) where I pick up my five dress shirts. This took only two fittings. I didn't specify what kind of stitching I wanted, so they gave me the cheapest kind. I don't really care. They cost $14 a pop, and they were copied from a shirt I adored that was so dead.
Off to Yaly Couture, (3 locations) where I go for my 3rd fitting of the dress I "splurged"on for $57. 40's pinup style (try explaining that to the vietnamese), square neck, tight cap sleeves, pencil skirt with a flounce in the back. Sleeves still not right... they keep working on it. Three women, pinning, discussing, strategizing. All smiles.
Off to Thuong Cloth Shop, 30 Le Loi, where I pick up my thick, melton-wool coat, extra thick with a delicious collar and toggles. I'm sure I'm not the only crazy girl traveling across Asia with a dead-of-winter coat.
Tailor #4. Forget the location. Light-green top. Sexy. I eat some random barbecued beef and noodles at a food stall. I make it as spicy as I can handle.
The Tailor at Bup Design is a bitch. She overcharges me and totally fucks it up. DO NOT ASK FOR A CORSET in Vietnam. They have no idea what it is. I told her "corset" and "very thick" and "boning" all the other detals that makes a corset a corset. She comes back with an unlined top in the shape of a corset, and instead of grommets in the back there are open buttonholes. The woman tries in vain to lace it up, it of course does not work. It gapes, it bunches, it doesn't fit, it is falling down.
We get into it. I keep arguing that this was not what I asked for. She is arguing that she doesn't understand why I don't like it, thatthefabric waas thick and I said thick, that she already paid the tailor. I am trying not to lose my cool, which is evidently a no-no dealbreaker in Asia. This same argument goes back and forth for about 5minutes. I finally say "WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO DO??" This ends the conversation. She has no suggestion. I pay for the other blouse, and I leave her, sullen and sulking. Bup Design, 68 Nguyenen Thai Hoc. Avoid like the plague.
I really don't know how this shit fits in my bag.
Day 1. Arrive in Hoi An, probably on the overnight bus from Hue. Walk around, get a lay of the land. Almost all of these shops are the same, and there are HOARDS of them. Innumerable. Most of them are selling CRAP. Crap fabrics cut to your size. I'm happy I spend a good deal of my time playing around in the garment district. "Vietnamese silk" is not silk at all. Get ideas. Get the fever.
Day2. Start in the morning. Early. Every store you go into, you have to go through magazine after magazine, getting inspired, narrowing vision. I started at Yaly Couture, the nicest shop with the nicest fabrics, by far, I thought. I leafed through magazines for two hours. Hint: If you leton thatyou're hot as hell, thennicer stores will bring you iced bottled water andturn the fan on you, knowing that keeping you cool in Vietnam is motivation enough.
Then you pick fabrics. There are tons to choose from in a nice shop.
Then you negotiate price. After two hours of this, you might not even be able to negotiate to something affordable. The nicer stores are kind about this. The ones that are not so nice get embittered.
Then they measure you.
Lather, rinse, repeat. Which you have to do, in order to diversify your portfolio, or so to speak, in case the place you pick sucks.
Which is sometimes the case.
Do not pay a large deposit. Nicer stores won't even ask for one at all.
Day 3
Get fitted in the morning. Get alterations. Go back inthe afternoon. Repeatuntil finished or until you have to get the hell out of dodge.
For example, here was my day 3:
I go to Central Market (Ly Ly store) where I pick up my five dress shirts. This took only two fittings. I didn't specify what kind of stitching I wanted, so they gave me the cheapest kind. I don't really care. They cost $14 a pop, and they were copied from a shirt I adored that was so dead.
Off to Yaly Couture, (3 locations) where I go for my 3rd fitting of the dress I "splurged"on for $57. 40's pinup style (try explaining that to the vietnamese), square neck, tight cap sleeves, pencil skirt with a flounce in the back. Sleeves still not right... they keep working on it. Three women, pinning, discussing, strategizing. All smiles.
Off to Thuong Cloth Shop, 30 Le Loi, where I pick up my thick, melton-wool coat, extra thick with a delicious collar and toggles. I'm sure I'm not the only crazy girl traveling across Asia with a dead-of-winter coat.
Tailor #4. Forget the location. Light-green top. Sexy. I eat some random barbecued beef and noodles at a food stall. I make it as spicy as I can handle.
The Tailor at Bup Design is a bitch. She overcharges me and totally fucks it up. DO NOT ASK FOR A CORSET in Vietnam. They have no idea what it is. I told her "corset" and "very thick" and "boning" all the other detals that makes a corset a corset. She comes back with an unlined top in the shape of a corset, and instead of grommets in the back there are open buttonholes. The woman tries in vain to lace it up, it of course does not work. It gapes, it bunches, it doesn't fit, it is falling down.
We get into it. I keep arguing that this was not what I asked for. She is arguing that she doesn't understand why I don't like it, thatthefabric waas thick and I said thick, that she already paid the tailor. I am trying not to lose my cool, which is evidently a no-no dealbreaker in Asia. This same argument goes back and forth for about 5minutes. I finally say "WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO DO??" This ends the conversation. She has no suggestion. I pay for the other blouse, and I leave her, sullen and sulking. Bup Design, 68 Nguyenen Thai Hoc. Avoid like the plague.
I really don't know how this shit fits in my bag.
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