Making Clothes

One of the cool things about many Asian cities over the years is the ability to buy custom-made clothes inexpensively. In Shanghai there is an entire district for this, with a huge warehouse-like building with hundreds of stalls/vendors making everything imaginable - suits, sweaters, shirts, skirts, coats, everything. A nice man's dress shirt it about $10, though you have to find a vendor you like, especially if you are hard to fit like me.

One interesting issue is that when everything is custom, you have to think of (or decide) everything - even for a simple shirt, what sort of buttons, which of 10 different collars, what sort of sleeve and cuff, types and location of pockets, etc. Very interesting process.