What could be more exciting than wearing new clothes on Deepavali? With the festival round the corner, women, both young and old have long finished their shopping for dress materials and are now awaiting those to get stitched by the tailors — be it churidars or blouses for saris.
However, tailors are too busy trying to meet the two-week deadline, stitching day and night to meet their customer’s demands.
In the past, readymade dresses were considered an expensive affair and people preferred stitched ones during festive occasions.
Today, though readymade business is at its peak, tailoring business has not been left in the lurch. The tailoring business is still very much in place, especially tailoring for women, says Preetha, the owner of Semmes couture, designer tailoring shop for women in Nungambakam. She says that she hasn’t seen a dull season in her last six years of tailoring business.
But what is it that still makes people opt for tailored clothes? “The huge collection of readymade dresses available in the market, people are exposed to new trends. When they see a lot of designs they tend to get more creative and want their dresses to be designed exclusively. That’s what we offer. Most people come with an idea and we develop on it. We get them a customised dress,” explains Preetha.
Tailors say that almost 80 per cent of their customers request for designer works. “This is the current trend. Normal design both in chudi and blouse will take one week, but customised designs take more than one month. So accordingly we fix deadlines,” says Joachim Mary Sylvia, owner of Diva House of Fashion in Adyar.
This is the same reason why most of them stop accepting customer’s demands a week or two prior to the festival, as they would have a pending load to complete.
Talking about the current trend, she says, “In the last few years we have seen that the demand for blouses has drastically increased over chudidhars. Earlier we had 70 per cent demand for chudidhars and 30 per cent for blouses, but now it is the complete opposite.”
Tailors who are more into designing works are on demand and are accordingly paid. They charge anywhere between `220 and `10,000 for a chudidhar, depending on the designing work and lining used. The same applies to blouses.
Not just in festive season, most tailors seem to run a comfortable business throughout the year as they mostly deal with regular customers who are particular about stitched clothes.
“Of course there is a slight increase of around 40 per cent in business around festival season but otherwise the business is stable. It is not seasonal business as it used to be earlier,” says Preetha with a smile.