South Bund Soft Spun Fabric Market

There were many things I was looking forward to before moving to Shanghai: eating authentic Chinese food, learning a new language, discovering a new culture, teaching English, living with Trent. However, one of the things I was most looking forward to was having clothes custom made at the fabric market. Luckily, the South Bund Soft Spun Fabric Market has been everything we hoped it would be and more! It is three floors of stall after stall of tailors specializing in different items and fabrics from linen and cashmere to tweed and jersey cotton. Trent received a recommendation for a tailor from his relocation consultant so we frequent his booth and another booth that I discovered regularly. Almost everyone here speaks English which makes the process easier, we can demonstrate that we are from here by speaking Chinese to them so they know that the typical foreigner price won't work with us.

We go once a week to pick up the items we were fitted for the previous week and to pick out what we want made the following week. I have befriended a girl named Niu Niu at a stall where her sister makes beautiful modern dresses and skirts from jersey cotton. She gives us the best prices and she considers me to be a friend, which for me means a lot since I know very few people in Shanghai I really do look forward to visiting her and picking up my latest creation! Her sister made the blue, black and green dresses that I modeled for Trent so I could share the designs with you, my adoring fans. Okay, I'm kidding but really a certain Heather Wilson has been dying to see these creations and I'm not going to lie, I'm very excited to share them with you!

In China, the concept of personal wealth is still a relatively new and exciting concept so it is much more meaningful to Chinese people to be able to buy clothes off the rack to demonstrate their wealth or status than to have custom made. As my US readers know, it is an expensive luxury to have clothes custom made in the US so no one here is all too impressed with my custom made clothes, not to mention you can and must barter to get good prices at the fabric market which is obviously not an option at the neighborhood Louis Vuitton store. I'll give you a sampling of what we pay: Trent's dress shirts are RMB 100 or $17, (he refused to model for me but maybe I'll pester him into a fashion shoot later fingers crossed!), I paid RMB 120 for my purple button down for my satin polka dot dress shirt (which as of yet it has been way too hot to wear to work but I can't wait!), I have a deal with Niu Niu for dresses to be made for RMB 200 or $34. So as you can see these prices are better than off the rack US and what keeps us coming back week after week. When it gets cooler out I plan to invest in a cashmere coat, more photos to come as our custom made wardrobe grows!

The last outfit I'm modeling for you is what we fondly refer to as my 'Teacher Taylor' outfit, Trent said it the first day I wore it and then one of my co-workers also said the same thing once I got to work. I love the linen skirt its very comfortable and apparently very teacher-ish. I have been wanting one of the tie neck dress shirts very badly, and Mom you will cringe at the fact that Trent and I had to google a video on how to "tie a bow tie" because we could not successfully do it otherwise. Here's some photos from in and around the fabric market, followed by some of the clothes I've had made so far. Come visit, friends and family and add some custom made creations to your wardrobe!