Hi everyone

i was just looking for a bit of advice. I am 20 yr old girl looking at starting my own fashion business, I would like to travel to india to get my fashion designs made by a tailor as i have been told that there are many tailors available in goa and a lot of places to buy fabrics.

I would appreciate any info on

best place in india for tailors?
prices of garment making?
Price of materials?
timescales of how long tailors take to make an item?
Shipping prices to uk?

Thanks

Hi there, there are many tailors in Goa and prices for making up are very cheap. This winter I was having tops made for about £2 and trousers around £3.50 with my own fabric. However, over the years I have come to realise that when you take your initial orders things generally go well which encourages you to take more items and as time goes by standards drop. It is the same old story with Goans, they are not really interested in long term relationships that involve hard work. This winter was no exception, I found a new tailor the first few items were excellent and on time, then I had to continually take things back despite them being made to the same pattern and size. I would advise you to find a number of different tailors and use them together rather than keep all your eggs in one basket.

Fabrics are plentiful and very cheap, be careful though as what you get isn't always what you think you're getting. If you want linen, insist it is pure linen they generally try to sell you a mix, but keep insisting, eventually they get the message, if you buy cotton fabrics, soak them first as there could be shrinkage although a good tailor will tell you this before making up. I have found some good fabrics in a couple of shops outside Mapusa Market. There are also plenty in Margao. Be aware that good buttons are not available in Goa, I have searched high and low and never found any so it may be worth either leaving them off until you get the items home or take a selection with you.

You can post things back to UK fairly cheap it all depends on how quickly you want it to arrive. The maximum size you can post is 1 cubic meter. We sent a number of large packages home by SAL via the Post office which I believe is Sea and Land which was very reasonable and they arrived within 3 weeks. If you go for speed post it will be very expensive. If you make up a parcel to post you have to go to the tailor and have it stitched into white cloth before taking it to the post office, if you go prepared it will make things easier for you.
I hope this helps and answers your questions.

Hi

Thanks for the reply i want to get as much info as possible before i travel to goa! How long does it take a tailor to make say one simple dress? Also can you just show the tailor a picture of the dress you want or do they only work from patterns or copy and actual garment you have?

Do you live in goa?

Thanks

Hi

Thanks for the reply i want to get as much info as possible before i travel to goa! How long does it take a tailor to make say one simple dress? Also can you just show the tailor a picture of the dress you want or do they only work from patterns or copy and actual garment you have?

Do you live in goa?

Thanks

Hi, you can get things made up within a day depending on how busy they are generally a couple of days.

They can make things up from pics, many of them have old Next catalogues etc which tourists have taken over and they can copy samples of items you already have.

As I mentioned yesterday you can get things made up very cheap but if you go to the Kashmiri tourist shops you will be charged more and to be honest you don't get better quality, only A/C shop and all the pleasantries you would expect as a tourist, also their fabrics are more expensive.

Goan taylors can copy any garment you care to put before them, can copy from a catalogue for an individual if they have the measurements or for bog standard sizes without measurements (might not be to EU fit tho). They really are great at this stuff. Quality of fabrics are pretty good too. Simple dress 36 hrs, 2 pce suit 2 days! That is for the one off tourist. For business, regular orders, who knows! We don't live in Goa but have spent many years there as 'guests'. Wouldn't advise you base a UK business on these terms. Just our personal opinion tho.

Depending on what time off year you are coming to goa, if season time which is Nov-april you will have the pick of the crop but the rest of the year you will have to look around, my friends make clothes here and find it very difficult in monsoon because not alot of people want to work, but its worth doing abit of hunting. (i live here all the time)