HYDERABAD: The holy month of Ramzan is still a month away, but business has already started to pick up for tailors in the Old City. Besides bulk orders for the ongoing marriage season, they are swamped with demands for sherwanis, kurtas, lehengas and other festive clothes.
Ready-to-wear apparels may be getting popular, but there is no dearth of visitors to these shops. Many in the Old City prefer to get their festive clothes stitched, even if that means having to approach a tailor a month ahead of Ramzan. “We already have Ramzan orders set for a month. On a day-to-day basis, based on the availability of labour, we generally make three-four suits,” says 50-year-old Mohammad Ibrahim, owner of India Tailors in Madina Market.
“Ahead of Ramzan, we usually work from 11 in the morning to 10 in the night,” says Ramesh Chinna who runs SV Designer Tailors in Pathergatti. “The orders keep on coming. It gets so hectic that we have to work often till 3 in the night, then again come back in the morning,” says an employee of Ideal Stich Tailors that is tucked away in the SYJ Complex, Pathergatti.
Though the charm of tailor-made clothes holds strong in the Old City, heritage shops seem to be losing business to newer ones. “Forget Ramzan, no one comes to our shop anymore to get new clothes stitched. Most of our work is restricted to sewing torn clothes,” says Mohammad Abdul Gaffar, owner of 117-year-old A Rahman & Sons Tailors in Abids.
According to their website, they once received royal patronage for creating finest suits for H.E.H Nizams, presidents of India and other eminent personalities.
Gaffar says that over the years, his number of employees has dwindled from 50 to a mere five. Gaffar now has to take sherwani orders from ready-made clothes shops. “This is because people look down upon people who get their clothes stitched,” rues Gaffar.