Hoi An tailor shop comes to my mind when I think of this small Vietnamese town. My never-ending stories about this town were slowly getting to Vivi. I had it coming, I built up her expectations and soon I heard her say: “This town is so beautiful and I would look great in a new dress!” I knew that she would be impressed and her love for dresses is not a new thing. How do you find a good Hoi An tailor amongst all those tailor shops?
The Best Tailor in Hoi An
What is the best tailor shop in Hoi An? Usually, we avoid using “the best” because we think that it’s important to try every single one in town to claim that title. I have had some previous experience with tailor-made clothes and here in Hoi An, with two tailor shops. One was quite alright, but a little bit stressful, while the other was an extremely positive surprise.
Well, the internet has the answer to everything you need and there are tons of reviews and articles about tailor shops here in Hoi An. After all, if you are reading these, you already know that. As we found out, a lot of tailors only take your measurements and the clothing is actually made in a “central workshop”, which is not the perfect option if you ask me. If you ever had tailor-made clothes, you will know what I am talking about.
The first rule is: find a real tailor! This is the only way to guarantee that your clothes will be exactly what you want and that they will fit perfectly. Our next step before heading to this particular Hoi An tailor was to talk about it with our local friend, and he confirmed our finding. Research got us to Be Be Tailor, and locals have a good opinion about them. Hmmmm. That’s a good sign.
I truly believe we found one of the finest tailors in town. We got this feeling in the first minute that we walked into the massive shop. Extremely nice service, endless shelves of fabrics and most importantly, you can see how they make your clothing. As we found out later, there are some other properties which can confirm my thoughts, that this is in fact the best Hoi An tailor shop.
Getting Clothes Made in Hoi An
Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? We came to Be Be’s without any idea of what we would like to get, we weren’t even sure if we were going to buy anything. Their huge store and professionalism quickly changed our minds. You wouldn’t believe how much fun it is to design your own clothes.
First, we were given an iPad and the simple task of choosing the model of dress we liked. For me, it was an easy task, but Vivi had more of a hesitation: should it be more formal, casual, long, short, what colors, etc., and when she finally found a dress, she wasn’t entirely sure, because there was another one she also liked. So, we solved that problem very easily: we’re getting two dresses.
Choosing the designs took only an hour, what I think is not much for a woman. If only it could always be like this, instead of spending hours walking through shopping malls, the world might be a nicer place – if you ask me. After choosing the design, we moved to the next step, which is choosing the textile: all the colors and fabrics, amazing patterns, in all possible variations.
I think that could easily be a task in which Vivi would be lost for days if the lady helping us out hadn’t been that skillful. She knew exactly what kind of material we needed for our clothes and what fabric would work for the dresses. I admire how she knew where they kept each fabric, since the selection is really huge. There is no way they would hire me there: “Just give me one hour, sir, I know we have grey cotton here somewhere…”.
Making a Dress is an Art in Itself
Design: check. Fabrics: check. Measurements took five minutes and a lady was already drawing our dress into her notebook, a process that is an art in itself. I needed to take photos, just to show you how amazing it is to see how the words of our descriptions were put into a drawing.
At noon, we were drinking our coffee in the nearby café and thinking about what had just happened. In two hours, we had chosen our clothing design, taken measurements, arranges all the details and made an appointment for our first fitting the very next day. Honestly, I was a little skeptical about how they would manage to keep the promise.
After all, Vivi’s dresses were complicated and I had ordered trousers and three different designs of shirts. Obviously, we were really astonished by the speed because we forgot our camera there. Yes, that happened! Luckily, everything was ok with the camera when we went back that afternoon and since we were in the shop, they invited us to see our clothes being made. They were sewing our design soon after we left the store, amazing. We didn’t watch the production for too long, but I got to take some interesting photos.
Amazing How Quick You Can Have a New Hoi An Tailor Dress
The next day went just as planned: we had our first fitting and the clothes were already beautiful. They marked the changes and secured the small corrections, treated us with a drink, and then we were off to go sightseeing. Later in the day, we returned for the last fitting and just like that, almost everything fitted well.
At that time, I decided to have tighter pants and Vivi changed something to her primary design. Seems like even that wasn’t a big deal for them. They said we could get our clothes on the same day as they originally planned, but our schedule made us push it back to another day. Amazing! Vivi’s dresses were astonishing and came out even better than we thought. My shirts were just like I want them and the pants even had one small detail I had asked for.
Everything was very quick and I believe this is important because 90% of tourists in Hoi An have limited time in the town. You really don’t want to spend holidays in the fitting room and keep returning to tailor shop for corrections. This is something that makes them the best Hoi An tailor: speed and flexibility. We were at Be Be’s four times altogether, but one of those was because of the forgotten camera. I can talk also about the quality, which obviously is very important for the final product.
The Quality of Hoi An Clothing
I am writing this article three months after our visit to Hoi An (ashamed of how slow we are with our writing) and this clothing is still like new. I have a feeling these will be my favorite shirts and I want them to last. For Vivi, I know these are her top dresses. She has some other really nice tailor-made dresses, but with these, I can see a sparkle in her eyes. Hence, talking about quality. You can follow us and count how many times these clothes will be in our photos. Remember, we are on the road for a long time and our wardrobe is small.
If you will ever be in Hoi An, it would be a sin not to get tailor-made clothes. From our experience, I warmly recommend Be Be Tailor. On my last trip here, I stopped in another tailor shop, which was a waste of time. Their small supply of fabrics and a lot of fixings they had to make on the final product, started my nerves. They changed one of my buttons, which was different than others, only one hour before my departure. “Hey bus driver, can you wait. My tailor is just fixing a button. Ou you are in Hue already. Ok, then…” This time, my experience was totally different.
Here are our first and second dress ‘show off gallery’, where you can see for yourself how great is our new couture. If you need any fashion photographer let us know. Apparently, we can do it 🙂
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