For the past few years, young and old alike swarm readymade showrooms for their Deepavali garments. Despite readymade garments ruling the roost, traditional and well established tailoring marts continue to attract customers.
Wearing new clothes has been a quintessential feature of the festival. In the past, tailors used to work overtime at least a couple of months in advance for Deepavali, but tailoring marts, for quite some years, have been recording just half of their usual order.
More than anything else, it was the availability of readymade garments at a fairly cheaper rate, that too at any time they prefer, which attracted the consumers.
The tailoring marts of long standing, which have established a name for themselves, continue to enjoy good patronage.
The owners of these units attribute this to the good name and rapport they have established with the customers over the years.
Some of them say that they have been regularly updating and adopting the latest fashion trends, which has been widely welcomed by the consumers, particularly the younger generation.
K. Senthilkumar, running Weldon Tailor at Suramangalam in the city, concedes that there is certain fall in the patronage for tailoring marts.
“Thanks to our personal rapport, a majority of our regular customers have already placed their orders for this year’s festival. These loyal customers introduce new people to us every year. We are expecting more orders after the Ayudha Pooja. Now we are running against time to meet the deadline,” he says.
For a majority of even the well established shops, getting and retaining trained hands is a big problem. Workers in the initial stage are paid well. Despite this, the tailoring marts are finding it very hard to retain them.
Charges not
increased
Many tailoring marts have not increased their charges, despite rising cost of raw materials.
“We have been charging Rs. 500 for stitching a set of pant and shirt for quite some time. Our customers have found this reasonable,” says Mr. Senthilkumar, who is in this field for the past two decades.
M. Janarthanan of Gangavalli near here has been wearing only tailor-stitched clothes during the festivals for the past two decades. He travels all the way from Gangavalli to the city to get his clothes stitched in a particular tailoring mart.
“I along with three other friends visit Salem city ahead of Deepavali every year for stitching the clothes,” he says.
The tailoring units exclusively for women too enjoy usual patronage from their regular customers.
Tailors hit
It was the rising costs and shrinking margins that has hit the medium and small tailors. The prices of various commodities have increased to an extent that it has reduced the purchasing power of people. This trend has hit the tailoring marts. Rising cost of raw materials right from needle, press buttons, yarn to zip have all made the life of the people running the small tailoring marts miserable.
P. Fakhruddin of Jagir Ammapalayam has been in this field for the past two decades. In the initial years, he set up a small shop. Due to poor patronage following people’s preference for readymade garments, he closed down his shop and joined a tailoring mart as a worker.
Ever since the work of stitching of uniforms for school students came to an end in June, he has not much work to do. The Deepavali season is expected to pick up only after Ayudha Pooja. As such, Fakhruddin and his owner are waiting with their fingers crossed.
This is the trend prevailing with all the medium and small tailoring marts. Many trained workers, due to not so encouraging earning, have already left the job and are employed with realtors.
Earlier, seasonal tailoring workers were available during the festival seasons. Nowadays, they too have become scarce.
