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A Vietnamese tailor measures Nadine Chalmers-Ross - Source: Nadine Chalmers-Ross -
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NZI Business' Nadine Chalmers-Ross describes a trip to
Vietnam.
Halfway up the coast of communist Vietnam lays a consumerist Mecca.
I found, if not my spiritual home, at least my idea of Heaven
there, in Hoi An.
Its Old Town is a Unesco world heritage site which is unpretentiously charming. Its lantern-lined streets are dotted with beautiful eateries serving the best Vietnamese cuisine. It's full of industry and yet peaceful.
That atmosphere is helped by the many Pho di Bo or "walking streets". They are closed to anything other than feet and primitive vehicles, providing respite from the roar and rev of motorbike traffic. It's close to the coast, but it's not (yet) a resort town overrun by sunbaking tourists.
For these reasons alone, Hoi An would be a seaside idyll. But for me what elevates it far beyond that can be found at roughly every second shop - tailors.
Hundreds upon hundreds of tailors. Any dress can be made in my size "no problem", every outfit looks "veeeery nice" on me. As someone suffering from a borderline addiction at the best of times, Hoi An sends me over the edge and into a shopping frenzy.
It's different to the "You want suit?" scenario you encounter on the main street of Patong in Phuket, Thailand. The Hoi An area is famous for its high grade silk and traders have been coming here from far-flung places to buy it for centuries. So really, I'm not having a consumerist experience - this is a historical journey... or something.
I order a silk-lined woolen winter coat and within hours, I'm trying it on. I love it so much I order another. I commission a rather complicated outfit I spy in a picture on a website, then a cocktail dress, a summer dress or two... and just when I swear I MUST stop, I spy something else.
And of course our obliging tailors are all too willing to make it in my size, in my material of choice, all in the blink of an eye.
It took us a few hours of wandering the streets before we settled on a tailor. There are just so many we figured some must be rogues.
But we strike gold with sisters Thanh and Hien at 'Su Cloth Shop'.
Thanh is just 23 and she tells me she bought the shop two years ago, after saving a deposit while she worked for another tailor for six years. She now has more than 30 people working for her, at peak times churning out 50 dresses, 20 suits and 50 coats every day.
I ask her, with so many rival tailors in one small town, how she has managed to establish the business?
Her philosophy is simple. "We have to be good, with so many shops in Hoi, you just have to be good".
She relies on word of mouth and it seems to be working well for her. The tailors she employs, who race the garments around on their motorbikes, grumble good naturedly about being so very busy.
We observe dozens of tourists traipsing in and out of the store as we browse catalogues and paw at different materials. Some of them force me to bite my tongue, they're so rude and demanding.
I ask Thanh whether some customers frustrate her. That word exceeds her grasp of English - which she's primarily picked up from her tourist clients over the years. "Angry?" she offers.
Close enough. "You have to keep customer happy. But it's hard when they say first they want short dress and we make it, then they say they want long dress." Basically, some people demand the impossible.
But for me, they seemed to make the impossible, possible. Between the two of us we leave with about dozen new garments, all whipped up in just two days.
After collecting our haul, I stop to make one final purchase in Hoi An, this one by necessity - a new backpack.
