At the Fabric Martket

It would seem I haven’t had much time to update my blog while contacting my landlord to fix my internet and electricity, studying Chinese and sorting through the barrage of work recently assigned to me. The only real free time I’ve had of late not spent watching ‘Band of Brothers’ was this weekend, when I had pause to wander the city at my leisure. Of course by wander the city that can only mean one thing – buying shirts at the fabric market!

The fabric market is next to the hotel I stayed in my first 2 weeks in Shanghai, clear on the other side of town from where I live now. Thankfully, since I moved out in January a new subway line has been built to that part of town, yes things move pretty fast in Shanghai. The market is 3 stories high, each story containing 75-or-so small alcoves occupied by tailors and dressmakers. That’s almost 250 nearly identical stores to choose, that’s indecision city. Admittedly there are about 5 categories of shops, each specializing in their own thing: shirts, suits, women’s clothing, winter jackets and ‘traditional clothing’. They can make anything you want, as long as you are willing to come back a second time when they make it wrong the first.

The problem with shopping there is I have no concept of fabrics; none. I struggle to look at a design on a spool and extrapolate it out to an entire shirt, which thankfully hasn’t landed me in ugly-shirt land yet, but it might soon. The other problem I’ve discovered is that because these aren’t your daddies Eddie Bauer ‘wrinkle free’ fabrics, they require ironing which is something I have little experience in (my claim to fame was I once ironed a shirt for my one night out in Vegas). Theoretically a savvy shopper would know which fabrics will require less ironing than others, but I am very far from savvy. Despite these pitfalls, Shanghai is a great place to ‘invent’ your own personal fashion.

I bought 3 shirts and 2 pants last week, I pick them up tomorrow and I am excited. With summer looming and my meager shirt collection staring mostly winter favorites a new wardrobe was sorely needed. The best part is, even if I chose a bad pattern, or it doesn’t fit, I can always have another one made, such is the nature of the fabric market.