"1 Skirt, 2 Skirt, Purple Skirt, Blue Skirt"

Synthetic materials seem to be the most prevalent and popular type of cloth used to make skirts and dresses here in the capital city. I bought a skirt, made of some blend of synthetics, a month or two after moving here and have worn it quite frequently since then. However, I had been thinking that the synthetic sort of cloth isn’t as cool and breathable as 100% cotton (which I’m pretty sure I’ll want when we live out in the Gmz area where average temps are 80-110) so when we had friends coming to adopt/visit we asked Travis’ mom to send along some light cotton material for making some skirts. Mind you, I can sew a button back in place but my sewing skills haven’t excelled much past that regardless of various attempts on my part. With that in mind, we knew within our first few weeks here that a number of Ethiopians make their living sewing new clothes or repairing old ones and having a skirt or two made shouldn’t be too difficult.

 

So, after tea break on a Friday morning we headed off the school campus with our language teacher for a “shared experience” to a local tailor just across the street. I brought along a friend’s skirt that I liked as well as the material to be used and we began our hunt for a good tailor. We stopped outside of the first shop to examine the clothes on display…a key to knowing the quality of the tailor you’re about to encounter. We were all satisfied by what we saw and stepped in to the shop that couldn’t have been bigger than 10’ X 5’. Inside there was a lady at the far wall behind a counter ironing clothes while on the left side of the room were two sewing machines and tables with a young lady behind one and a man behind the other.

 

Mesfin, the gentleman, was the first to ask us what we would like after everyone exchanged greetings. I proceeded to try to explain (in Amharic) what I would like, showing him my friend’s skirt and the material I intended to use. Then we asked him how much he thought it would cost and we were slightly surprised by his price since it was noticeably higher than what we had been told to expect. We started to bargain with him but he came back with “very convincing” arguments. For example, we mentioned that we could have it made in an area of town that is notorious for having the lowest prices but he came back arguing that we would spend more getting transportation there and back and we would certainly want to stop for a soda or macchiato after making the trip. So it would be more reasonable to have him make it at a slightly higher price he reasoned convincingly. Somehow we still managed to get him to lower his price a bit.

 

After taking my measurements he asked us to come back in two weeks to pick up the final product. Before heading out the door he snipped off a tiny bit of the fabric and pinned it to a business card with the price written on the back to ensure that I would get the right skirt for the price we had agreed upon. We felt quite accomplished as we went out the door but the whole thing had taken such little time and we hadn’t gotten to do any price or product comparison so we decided to continue looking around and talking with other tailors to see what sort of deal we had gotten.

 

Much to our surprise tailor #2 quoted us ½ the price of the first guy and even said we could negotiate further when we brought material in and actually arranged for him to make the skirt. With such a low price we wondered what sort of quality he would produce in comparison, especially as his display items didn’t seem as fashionable or nice as the previous store. But that afternoon we came back with material for him to make a skirt in the same style as the first one. He took his own measurements and we agreed on his original offer price before heading out the door with another business card and plan to come back in one week, when he said he’s have the skirt finished.

 

Pictured above are the final products…and I’ll have to say that I actually like the skirt made by the second tailor better…but for out in the Gmz area I think both will be nice!