While looking at my shirts drying in the sun one day, I thought it might be fun to experience what it’s like to have something custom-tailored these days.

Having lived in New York, I had grown accustomed to buying my clothes off the rack — be it at Macy’s, Barneys, Bloomingdale’s, and Bergdorf Goodman’s Men store. Unlike as a kid when my father took me along to his neighborhood tailor; while ordering a shirt or a pair of pants for himself, a pair of shorts would sometimes also be requested for me. And during my early teens, I would go to Divisoria or Central Market with my brothers and cousins to shop for fabrics, and then take them to the tailor to be made as shirts or pants.

Ready-to-wear clothing then was unexplored territory; even our corduroy and denim jeans were custom-made. Nowadays, it’s the other way around, boosted by designer labels, retails sales of local and imported RTW garments (including its knock-offs) remain strong; consequently forcing most tailors to close shop.

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