The main reason for our foray through Central Vietnam's countryside to this town is of course the countless tailors that jostle for your attention along most of the city's streets. Here, made-to-measure clothing with a turnaround time of as little as 24 hours, costs a fraction of the price that it costs back home. This was of course right up Kiwi Girl's alley. Unfortunately our tailoring experience came with a lot of highs and devastating lows which left us with bittersweet memories. You may not need to research Hoi An too much as a town, but for tailors it's always good to have a few shop addresses up your sleeve as its very easy to get overwhelmed and over-excited here. Tip: We strongly recommend bringing an image of the designs you would like to get made before you visit, the tailors are so skilled they can copy things right off the picture. You'll be even better off if you know what fabrics you want or that suit your design best. Lastly, BE FUSSY. You don't want to go home only to have your freshly-sewn clothes fall apart on you after a few washes. Lets start with the tailors we would wholeheartedly recommend: Oche We could sing Oche's praises for a lifetime. The shopfront looks more like a designer boutique and sets itself apart from all the other similar looking tailors on Tran Hung Dao Street. There are many off-the-rack pieces that can be bought and altered to fit you perfectly. Prices of course will be cheaper than having pieces made from scratch e.g. skirts start from $60 usd. Our assistant, Ruby, was delightful and very knowledgeable in the different fabrics that can be used for a particular design. You do pay for quality and superior workmanship, but only by about $10-$20 extra, for our orders at least (standard men's shirts start at $30 usd). So if you're looking to make more detailed or complicated pieces, we highly recommend Oche for peace of mind in knowing that the quality will be better than most. Bao Diep Tailor Kiwi Girl had some formal trousers she loved but could no longer fit (#holidayweight) and so she brought them here for them to copy off ($20 usd). She also had a styled business shirt done based on a photograph she saw ($20 usd). We have to say this was one of the more popular tailors probably based on their high TripAdvisor ranking. The service is friendly and everything from consultation to fitting is done at lightning speed. A minor gripe is that there is no changing room per se, you're left to fend behind a flimsy curtain that can be opened by other unsuspecting customers at any given time. In terms of quality we thought they did a really good job with our pieces, although they weren't to difficult to make to begin with. However when we left Vietnam, we did find the pockets on the trousers had not been sewn all the way so small things put in them would have dropped. Overall we think Bao Diep make good quality shirts and suits, and their range of fabrics for these are better than other tailors we visited. Just be sure to double check everything and pour over the stitching to make sure nothing will fall apart at the seams within a few wears. Now for our disappointing tailoring experience that taught us a fair bit about sticking to your guns:
Minh Ni Tailor As mentioned earlier, this was a tailor recommended (perhaps a little too forcefully) to us by our driver. This was his sister-in-law's store and you could tell we were not the first customers he had roped into buying from here. On first meeting they are incredibly friendly and you'll learn pushy is their autopilot. Kiwi Girl had a list of pieces she wanted copied, while Kampung Boy was happy with having 1 (or 5) shirts made. We were so excited about finally being in Hoi An and because our driver stopped here before taking us to our homestay, there was an added pressure to get our pieces made here before we could bid farewell to him. When we hesitated, saying we preferred to have a look around the town before we committed to such a large order, the ladies there dropped the price even further. So feeling a little better, we agreed and paid a 20% deposit. They promised "if no like, no pay." We were mighty impressed that they had roughly made up all the clothes we ordered the very next day. But the workmanship was shoddy at best, and details we requested had been completely ignored. On each successive fitting we would visit the store hoping all our money had not been wasted on poorly made clothing. It wasn't that we had asked for anything complicated, in fact our order consisted of standard dresses, shirts and skirts but it was only the day before we were due to leave that we really had to put our foot down. When finally they realised we were not going to pay for some of the more dishevelled items, they kicked it up their quality a notch and we left with the pieces we had hoped for (although by then our standards had dropped a little from the sheer stress of it all) and on better terms. Tip: Although you may get bulk discounts if you choose just the one tailor to make all your clothing, there is truth in the saying "don't put all your eggs in one basket". If you haven't personally tried the tailor out for yourself, you're taking a big risk in relying on that one tailor to have every single piece up to scratch. Instead it's best to do a few pieces over a few different tailors, that way you can judge the quality of each without having wasted too much on unwearable or substandard pieces.
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AuthorWe're two Kiwi Malaysians navigating life in a modern global society. We love to seek adventure and are unashamedly food fanatics (without the pretentiousness). Most of all, we love connecting with others so please share with us your stories, opinions and recommendations! Archives
August 2017
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