Clothes Make The Man (part 3)

April 27th, 2000

Last week we had started to look at how to choose a good tailor and I wish to go a little further into this.

As I had said earlier, the easiest way to choose the tailor is to look at how well the establishment decorates the display windows and how fastidiously the staff in the establishment dress. This does not mean that the staff in a good establishment should be dressed in a coat and tie. Weather in Thailand would not encourage this, but the staff and at least the person running a good establishment should be sensibly if not well dressed. This would reflect directly on the way the clients products are handled. When judging the display windows of the establishment, great attention should be afforded to the way the models are dressed. Colour coordination should be good in the clothes the mannequins are wearing and the styles should be up to date as well as sensible. Each establishment has its own particular way of dressing its models and this on the one hand reflects the kind of client the establishment is trying to attract and is attracting and as well on the other hand reflects on the dress sense of the establishment and its runners. This also tells us as to what to expect from the establishment in terms of styles, cuts, and designs.

And establishment that dresses its models in a myriad of styles, patterns and colours can be easily equated with one which will try to dress a client any which way possible just to make him drop his money there. A well run and professional establishment should always have its models well dressed and sensibly too. One should not feel overwhelmed by the many options and possibilities being impressed upon the client when he tries to get a feeling of what exactly he wants to get by looking at the displays.

One should also, and this is especially true of tailors in Thailand; beware of establishments that advertise ridiculous deals and fantastically low prices for their products. I am a tailor and I know that it is not possible to get 2 suits, 2 trousers, 6 shirts and god knows what else for something like twenty five dollars. Being so, firstly one has to call into question the honesty and integrity of such business, which advertise low rates and when it does come down to it, are unable to comply with the conditions that such establishments have mentioned in their own advertisements. I do sometimes wonder why the government does not do anything about this. Were it Europe these establishments would be sued into the ground.

Ironically by advertising such ridiculous and preposterous prices establishments that do take out such ads are also telling you what to expect from them. There is no free lunch as a famous economist once said and I am afraid this is truer than ever today. By telling us that a suit costs forty dollars the establishment that sells it for such a price also is inadvertently warning us about the quality and durability, hence value of such an item.

Were one to know that an airline is selling a plane ticket from any where in the world to anywhere in the world for fifty dollars, wouldn’t you be skeptical too and wouldn’t you try to find out what the small print says? So why not the same for such false advertisements? Frankly I would consider my time and peace of mind much more valuable than that. It is a shame that unwilling and unaware tourists do fall for such scams and this gives the country an undesired image. Such establishments should be given a wide berth.

Another thing that does bother me about tailors in Thailand is that they profess to have received various awards and trophies. Since such awards do not actually exist, where do these shops get them from? And who does give it to them? I really wonder.

Once the presentation criteria has been met in choosing the right tailor for your self, one should now try to get to know how well informed is the tailor who serves you.

Let us go into this in my next newsletter next week. We shall then discuss what is necessary to know by a tailor that you would be happy being served by and how to find that out.

by Ravi the Tailor