Tailor Made

One thing that Vietnam is renown for is getting tailor made clothing for cheap. Actually, Hoi An is specifically known for this but since we only spent an hour there, I didn’t get a chance to do this.

I was still unsure about the tailors’ skills here so I asked my sister to send me our favourite pair of pants. (Side note: translating terms like “pair of pants” is very entertaining for Vietnamese people since only English refers to pants as a “pair”. I learned my lesson the hard way!) I thought asking the tailor to make an exact copy of an existing pair of pants would guarantee a good product.

These pants were purchased five years ago when my sister was a salesgirl at Teenflo where she got an employee discount (and where she spent all of her paycheques!). I have the exact pants in black and brown, while I think my sister has them in three colours. Both of our black pants are worn out because we’ve worn them so much!

My mother also sent material because she didn’t think I could find nice material in Vietnam (she also sent zippers because she was worried about zipper quality here!). This is actually good advice, since the material is usually the costlier part of getting clothes sewn. The pants cost 140,000 dong (about 9 USD) to get sewn, but would have cost 500,000 dong (about 32 USD) if I got the material at the store. Still a good price though! It took 10 days, which is actually a long time, but I was in no rush; I don’t wear pants these days.

I think the pants came out very well, especially considering the cheap price! They’re not perfect. For example, you can see where the button is sewn on the tab; I don’t know why they didn’t hide that. However, it’s good enough for me to want to shop for material and get at least another pair sewn before I leave! The tailor was accommodating too when I asked to shorten the pockets – they were really long.


These are my sister's and my favourite pants after which we’ve modeled our new pants.


Pants made for my sister with fake pockets in the back. No comments on the lack of posterior please...


And never mind my crumpled shirt - I don't have an iron. Notice on the front tab, the sewing line for the button on the underside can be seen.

These are my newly sewn pants with real pockets.

I now have confidence enough in the tailors’ skills to get something made from a picture. So I’ll be looking for ideas and material this week. Maybe a dress? Maybe a shirt? Unfortunately, I’m not very creative when it comes to clothes. I need to see the finished product and try it, so we’ll see how it goes… I’ll post pictures if I get anything else done!

On the topic of clothes, this Marc Jacobs store opened nearby. If I could afford anything here, I would still get clothes tailor made!

Sizes are relative, right?

[Caution: discussion about clothings and sizes. Boys would not likely be interested…]

In the crazy heat of 30+C in Saigon, I decided that I did not need to bring my jeans on my trip. I regretted that decision when I arrived in Quang Ngai. The temperature was around low 20’s during the day and low teens at night. Considering, we are planning on further going north to Hanoi and to the mountains in Sapa, my shorts and cropped pants would not be sufficient.

I was offered to borrow clothes but everyone here looks teensy. My aunt brought me down some “bigger” jeans, i.e. before she lost some weight. I couldn’t even zip them up. My legs were like ground meat in sausage casings. My aunt finally decided we should go shop for pants. Everyone in my family was worried I would freeze my ass off. There might be snow in Sapa they told me. I hesitated because Vietnamese people seem to like a lot of sparkles on their jeans and did I already mention everyone's tiny? I like my pants minimally adorned and fitting my supposed ginormous legs.

My aunt picked out pants at a store that was luckily opened during Tet: green or pink loose, army-looking, casual pants. I tried the largest green pair they had. I would have gone bigger but they didn’t have any. Turns out they were XXL!! I also picked out a pair of cords that are quite snug, no bigger size in store. And my lovely jeans are in Saigon, most likely never to be worn in the 30C weather there. Stoopid, stoopid me!


Infamous green XXL pants!! The Boyfriend calls them "C*****" pants (rhymes with Tommy and refers to the political situation here. I'm a bit paranoid about what I write though...)

My new cords with extra BLING!