Hoi An in the Saville Row of Vietnam with literally hundreds of tailors scattered around the city. You can get virtually anything made overnight.
We had a butchers around at a couple of the bigger tailors to get a feel for them and take a look at the fabrics they had. In the end, and after negotiating a tiered discount plan, I predictably went for the most exclusive place – Adong Silk – and the lovely Loan, my personal stylist!
First off I went with just the one suit, a classic English cut in navy, with a pink silk embroided lining. Nice. The cloth was from Lancashire! I opted for a four-button (overlapping) cuff (fully functional, of course) and a straight cut lapel hole, you ain’t gonna find any of that off the peg. I also got a light blue shirt – wing collar and double button on the cuff. Nice.
After the fitting the following day I went in deep with two more: a black suit in a similar cut to the navy (same material), but with slanted pockets and a double vent at the back, and a light summer suit in a top-end Italian fabric (Super 180 for those in the know). Oh, and 5 more shirts!
There was a huge debate about the lining in the black suit as I went for a rather floral one. It’s was a bold choice, maybe too bold. We spent a good day agonising over it between fittings two and three and eventually ran out of time even if I did want to change it, which I didn’t (I don’t think!).
All in all we must have gone into Adong 6 times over 2 1/2 days; at one point I found myself being dragged into the staff quarters and 2 minutes later I was merrily singing Happy Birthday along with the other staff. I even got a round of applause myself at one point, not too sure why!
The second fitting was an interesting one as I’d made the faux pas of going commando that morning. As you can imagine, commando and fitting don’t mix to well; especially when Loan had by that point become quite familiar to groping me with her tape and bounding into the changing room whenever she saw fit! There were a few near misses, but in the end we both managed to retain our dignity!
We picked our stuff up (Lau got a few shirts and trousers made) on the morning we were leaving Hoi An and trundled to the Post Office. It was quite a contradiction as we were hauling a bounty of fine clothes along with our backpacks on and travelling scruffs.
We sea-freighted them and so they should arrive at Lau’s Mum’s place in a few months. Fingers crossed as I need one of the suits for Si’s (Lau’s brother) wedding in July.
My only concern now is that once you’ve gone tailored there is no going back and it’s a tad more expensive back in the UK.
Hoi An is cool. A little touristy, but that also means it comes with a few creature comforts – a decent coffee for starters!
We got there by taking the famed Re-unification Express to Da Nang and then grabbing a cab (after a fake walking away saved us another USD2 on be fare) to Hoi An. We took in some stunning scenery on the train as it hugged the mountainous coast line on it’s meander from Hue.
While looking for a hotel we bumped into Mike and Kate who we’d met on our Halong Bay trip. The loose plan was to meet up with them for beers when we bumped into each other later, but we didn’t see each other again.
We spent 2 nights in Hoi An to re-coup and split our time between wandering the town – stopping for the occasional beer or coffee -, relaxing on the beach (a short cycle away) and Getting Tailored.
We had a stunning Valentines meal at on of the top-end restaurants on the quite side of the river. The place had just opened and the food was excellent.
We also found a nice little chilled out wine bar that served decent wine at a fair price (wine in Asia is relatively expensive…5-10 times cost of beer). We had a night cap here on both nights.
