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Monday 7 February 2011

Tailoring Needs

Tailoring needs
I am currently doing a questionnaire to understand the needs of my web site members to bring about some positive changes.
I need your assistance in pin pointing the difficulties in our fabric retail and tailoring.
If there is a good positive response then I would like to implement some changes to better our service according to your suggestions.
I am going to break this down into 5 sections
  1. local tailoring
  2. oversea tailoring
  3. self tailoring
  4. local ready made
  5. ready made online buying
local tailoring
  • Do you have tailoring difficulties?
  • Are you happy with your tailor?
  • Is your designer/tailor able to understand your needs?
  • Do you get prompt service?
  • Are you happy with the tailoring bills?
If this was a survey in the shop then I can guarantee 95% of the customers as dissatisfied with their tailors, most likely in all aspects.
My question is, how do we address this to overcome the problem and gain a satisfactory result.
During the 10 years of fabric retail business, I have seen a massive decline in fabric sales. The main reason for that is, buying the fabric is easy, its stitching that's a problem.
Times have changed and we are more fashion conscious. We no longer like the plain simple salwar kameez that our mums made for us. Every day new styles come out and we aspire to have them, but can the lady down the road understand them. Shes not a designer. She merely does it for a quick few pounds. She is self taught due to necessity, not for customer demands or satisfaction. If she can make 3 plain suits in a day and make 24 pounds, is she going to attempt to design something she has never done for 15 pounds and risk loosing her simple earning by doing something complicated.
Chances are no. so when you try and explain the design she will say I have no time. I can understand her logic. It simply isn't economically viable.
Labor in the west is expensive and tailoring is an underpaid job. This is one of the biggest reason for the decline in good tailors.
Most good tailors are men. They often have the training done abroad so although they are good in general sewing, they lack many other qualities.
Tailoring is not just about stitching the garment. A good tailor needs to understand
  • fabric and texture
  • design and suitability
  • customer relationship (body flows, design ethics)
  • planning, defining and understanding customer needs
  • management and timetable
These are all the flows with our oversea tailors and local seamstress. One who has all the above abilities will not hang around to do tailoring because as I said, its an underpaid and demanding job.
The other reason they often find it hard to continue in the trade is because they have to please the female clients. This is a hard job in itself. We are often undecided about what we want doing with the fabric. The client wants the tailor to suggest ideas, remember he is a tailor , not a designer. I often have customers come in asking for suggestions on fabric they have bought. If you bought the fabric then you should know what you want making from it.
I could spend hours writing on this topic and still not reach a conclusion so I want feed back from you guys
the person who can address this issue, I assure you will hit the jackpot
so whats the answer?

3 comments:

  1. can you please help me to find out some of complete videos that help me how to sew shirts neck designs easily and sew flappers or straight pants by my self.If u have these type of tutorial videos that will definitely help me to sew my little ones dress and as well as sewing my own.

    ReplyDelete
  2. at jans sewing solutions website, you will find videos to cover all aspects of sewing. many topics and garments have been completed with full video coverage and step by step instructions.
    registration is free with 24 hour free access to all videos to sample.
    hope to see youthere

    ReplyDelete
  3. i made new to sewing. i would like if you can show me how to use measurements and make shalwar kameez pattern template

    or recommend site how make salwar template

    ReplyDelete