Tailor and Trendy Designs

We love shopping, so we’re in just the right city. The trendy shopping centers have a wide selection of brand-name goods, but they also know how to price things. On top of that, there are plenty of markets where you can find all sorts of knock-offs. Another option is to get your own clothes tailored at one of the many tailors in the city. You can find tailors at Silk Street, Pearl Market, and Sanlitun Yashou Clothing Market. One tourist bus after another parks at Silk Street, where many tour groups visiting Beijing do their shopping. This means they have the right selection, but it can also be tough to negotiate a decent price if a wealthy Russian has just been there. We crank up the charm and have learned a few Chinese phrases. This way, we can even get the most hardened seller to loosen up a bit. It’s clear that showing interest in their language helps. Most tourists don’t get clothes tailored. Often, they don’t have the time to wait for it, so we felt like the tailors were really eager for business. It takes a long time to find the right design, figure out how the details should look, choose the materials, and then take measurements. We picked a tailor at Silk Street because they have a great selection of fabrics. If you want to have a suit made, it’s best to know a little about clothing production or at least pretend you know a lot. If you don’t tell the tailor what you want, they’ll most likely choose the cheapest buttons, zippers, and materials for the jacket and pockets. You need to specify how the pockets, belt loops, and seams should look. If you’re getting a dress made, it’s easiest for the tailor if you have a picture of the dress they can copy. I had the dress “in my head,” so we had to piece together elements from several designs we found in magazines. The tailor was starting to get gray hairs, but in the end, we got it just the way we wanted. It usually helps to say, “We’ll treat you to ice cream afterward.” Once the details were settled, it was time to negotiate the price. This takes time and effort. Often, we have to turn our backs on them several times and pretend to walk away because their prices are completely outrageous. After using tricks, charm, and the ice cream tactic, we managed to get the price down to 2500 yuan for all three suits. We chose the best materials and demanded lots of details, so we’re excited to see the final result. We also did some more shopping – we don’t have much space left in our backpacks, so we went for smaller items. We came home with the following: - Purple leather gloves for 50 yuan - Black leather gloves for 50 yuan - 2 leather belts for 40 yuan - 2 trendy workout tops for 45 yuan - 2 pairs of underwear (Calvin Klein) for 15 yuan - 2 workout T-shirts (Nike) for 50 yuan If you’re buying electronics, remember not to be too impressed if you see a 256 GB USB flash drive. The box says 256 GB, and when you save to it, it says there’s space for 256 GB, but in reality, it can only hold about 1 GB.