The New Tailor Revisited

On Sunday afternoon, the new tailor made his return house call to the apartment with his finished goods. My first impression is that he does a nice job with the clothes but doesn't pay attention to some of the details, which may not bode well for some of our future purchases. When tallying our total, he completely forgot to add two shirts that we had had made for a co-worker (note, Lindsay used this to her advantage when negotiating the final price) and she was fairly certain that he made one of the co-worker's shirts out of a different fabric. While the fabric selected was nice and this co-worker will never know (unless she's reading this post), just a reminder that we will need to be fairly explicit and write down what we've purchased going forward. It's not that he tried to substitute a cheaper fabric; it was an entirely different pattern and color. Our previous tailors had never bargained so what follows was a new experience. In general, his offer price on shirts seemed quite reasonable (INR 700 - 800) but his price on skirts and pants seemed expensive (INR 1200 - 1600 in general and up to INR 2300 for the silk....and yes, Lindsay acted insulted when he expect she pay the equivalent of $50 for a silk skirt). For the following list of clothing (not including the missing pieces), his initial offer price was INR 9900 (approximately $215):

• 2 - Women's linen skirts
• 1 - Women's silk skirt
• 1 - Women's short sleeve shirt (copy of Ann Taylor)
• 2 - Men's long-sleeved linen shirts
• 1 - Men's short-sleeve linen shirt
• 1 - Men's linen pants

Lindsay gently reminded him of the fact that he had forgotten two pieces and slowly got him to come down in price. We ended at INR 8400 (approximately $182) for our items. While I'm sure we overpaid to some extent, he made the mistake of mentioning that linen is more expensive than cotton, so we have some leverage and basis for comparison when the need for new dress shirts arises in the not too distant future. The clothing he brought seemed good enough and he did a very nice job with Lindsay's clothing, something that has been a struggle in the past (not anything to do with Lindsay specifically, the tailors we've found just seem to do a much better job with menswear). We placed another small order which he'll bring back next Sunday (hopefully this does not become a part of our weekend routine), most of which is linen. And yes, I recognize how ridiculous all this linen will be when back in Chicago. I may end up looking like Panama Jack, but there are still two very full summers to sweat through here.