New Shirts

I thought my trip to Hanoi would be a good opportunity to have a few items of clothing made up for me, as tailoring is very popular in Vietnam. I think I mentioned that I have a favourite shirt, which I wanted to have copied and made up in a couple different colours and fabrics (as the original retailer of these shirts is in the UK, and to have them sent to me here would probably cost me about $100 a pop, given the shipping, taxes, and customs duties).

So I took one of the shirts with me to Hanoi, and while there I bought some fabric - off-white and hot pink cotton, and dark red linen. My friend Thao recommended a tailor and I left my order with her, since she was too busy to make all three shirts during the week I was there.

This week, two new Vietnamese trainees for our project arrived here for a three-month stay. As one of these trainees is from Hanoi, I'd arranged for her to pick up the shirts when they were ready and bring them with her to Halifax. I'm absolutely delighted with the result. They are faultlessly sewn, and fit just the way I expected. Of course, the next test will be to run them through the washing machine - but so far, I'm well pleased.

The fact that these complicated garments, which surely took hours of work, only cost US $3.30 each to make, is shocking. Given that most of the clothing sold in North America and Europe is made in the Far East, under similar conditions, it really gives me pause for thought. Someone is making a packet out of clothing manufacture - but it sure as hell ain't the people doing the cutting-out and sewing. God bless globalisation and the capitalist system.