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I have a habit which is a legitimate luxury. Approximately every year, and some months before Hari Raya (that’s Eid to international readers), I would take some fabric to a tailor and have some traditional clothing made to measure. I’ve done this with my mother since I was a teenager, and I do it still.
This wasn’t because there were not ready-made baju kurung when I was growing up. Nor was it because they were more expensive. On the contrary, while tailoring is very affordable in Malaysia, it is still a little bit more expensive than off the rack. No, the reason why I originally developed this habit was because – like my mother – I was a more petite size than average.
This was especially the case around the waist. Up until recently, when China became more middle class and more mass market clothing became available to their sizes, it was simply impossible to find anything that wouldn’t require significant altering to fit a much slimmer waist. I didn’t wear skirts for years because for whatever reason, you were more likely to find pants that might fit, but never skirts.
Now, while my mother could tailor, objectively her time was better spent on the demands of her legal profession. And since I had no talent for it, I always had at least one regular tailor at any one time.
A cultural love for fabrics
I didn’t mind having to go to the tailor, though. Some people like shopping from the rack. And occasionally I do, too. But when you go to the tailor, you have to come with the fabric. And Malay people, culturally, have always loved fabrics.
It was among the first things we assimilated into our cultures once trade with continental civilisations began. Much later, even the British colonials observed that we were much more fastidious with the appearance of our clothing than our homes.
Perhaps there is a kind of ancestral memory that remains, because I have an inexplicable pleasure in shopping for textiles. Not finished garments, mind you. Only textiles. This is something I share with my father, not my mother (who absolutely detests shopping for clothes).
There’s a unique pleasure with looking at beautifully woven or decorated fabric by the yard, that’s diminished when they’ve been made into something. Especially if it’s artisanal – my wardrobe has a surprisingly high ratio of batik. I absolutely avoid textile shops and batik expos if I do not want to add to my stash of un-tailored fabrics!
The tailor is still part of our culture
It may surprise some people that I frame bespoke tailoring as a luxury.
Aside from tailored suits, which is thought of as ‘expensive’, getting festive clothing tailored is so normal to us that we take it for granted. We’re now prosperous enough that regular people can afford it. At the same time, there’s enough regular demand annually because of the festive seasons, that enough tailors can make a living and charge very reasonable prices. I am well aware that in developed countries, this is not the case. And that consequently, tailored clothing is much more expensive and upper-class.
We are in a sweet spot which is quite rare.
Once upon a time, clothing – any clothing – was a big deal. Good fabric was not easy to come by, and had to last for a long time. Some were even heirlooms. Kings bestowed clothing to people they favour, and this was seen as an honourable and rare gift.
Tailoring was a much more common skill then, because you needed to be able to alter this limited wardrobe to whoever is wearing them. And this is still a luxury, because you had the fabric to alter in the first place. Most simply didn’t have them at all.
But unlike many other places, somehow we kept our tailors even after we prospered. Even after ready-made clothing. And even after fast fashion.
Going to the tailor prepared me for slow fashion
Looking back, in a way, this habit of going to the tailor left me with the grounding principles for slow fashion, growing up in an era when cheap mass-quality clothing was becoming common, and before ‘slow fashion’ existed as a concept.
Not that tailored clothes couldn’t be treated as disposable. I knew some people who could afford to tailor clothes frequently, and just gave away their older clothes to make room.
But when you’re choosing the fabric yourself, I think you tend to pick better quality more often than not, in the same way as you tend to buy better food when you shop for fresh groceries vs packaged meals. And there is something personal about it too. You’re more likely to choose some fabrics that you especially like. Or perhaps, it was gifted to you from a loved one.
And then, provided the tailoring is also good, I find that I hang on to those clothes for longer. They keep surviving the wardrobe culls I do every few years. (It helps that I don’t really change body shape, though.) Apart from the personal sentiment, they simply take longer to look worn or faded.
And for fabrics that I especially liked, I sometimes don’t let them go even then. I might rescue the fabric to re-make into other things, or another garment. To keep it for just a little longer.
Time showed me that when I choose the things I love and not just from whatever’s easy, I keep them for longer. And because they’re there, I buy fewer new clothes than I might have.
The true textile masters
Today, with the ubiquity of fast fashion, it seems unbelievable to some that clothing could last for ages. But once upon a time, this was an expectation. And I think tailors know it the best.
I took some fabric to my tailor last year, indigo Indian cotton. In recent years, the rising middle class in India has resulted in a revival of its famed textile cultures. As in, made by actual artisan co-operatives, who own their own businesses.
With online stores, they’re now more globally accessible as well. In modern times, I didn’t have to wait for a merchant to arrive from Cambay on a ship like my ancestors. With indigo making a comeback recently, I took the opportunity to stock some.
She approved of the quality (and my eclectic taste). Get this cotton in white, she said, upon confirming that it is real Indian cotton. They get whiter after a wash, somehow.
I asked her how she knew. My tailor said that once, long ago when she was learning fashion, she had interned with a girl from India. Before the girl left for home, she gifted everyone with cotton items. My tailor got a white bedsheet.
This was 20 years ago, she said, and the bedsheet has not shown signs of wear, and is still white.
Part of me disbelieved. But my tailor insisted. She said she doesn’t know how they did it, whether it’s the weave or the way they whitened the cotton. But that was the effect, and it was different from the cotton in our usual experience.
Can we return to the old worldview of textiles?
I thought back to ancient times, when the fame of India was inseparable from its legendary textiles and fabulous weaves for hundreds of years. Several place names in present-day India became literally our words for specific types of cloth and fibre. The expertly woven cottons, and myriad silks. Gold leaf in cloth, which became absorbed in our own textile culture. And the fabled Dhaka muslin, just recently brought back from colonial extinction. Some samples of these exist in museums, or as heirlooms of royalty.
So perhaps it’s true that it was once normal for well-made cotton to last that long, and still look so good. And perhaps it could be true again.
Perhaps we can hit a sweet spot here too, with the beautiful cloths more accessible to the common man. Yet like the textiles of the masters of old, they last not for a fashion season, but loved for years to come.
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