Who makes the clothes

I can only tell you my experience, which may not be representative!

I ordered a dress, which for various reasons didn't fit and as I was leaving that they took me to the place it was made to sort it out quicker. I went with the shop owner on the back of her bike down through the market, she rode the bike the whole way despite it being packed. We ducked through some of the stalls and in a old house there was a workshop. There were 4/5 women in there working on old singer sewing machines, the ones with foot pedals that sell for a fortune in antique shops. I don't remember electricity and it was pretty dark, but all the ladies seemed to get on well and were amazingly quick with the work.

Although the working conditions were hardly up to Western standards I got the impression it was a group of 20 something women having a good laugh while they worked. I was there about an hour, no-one spoke a word of English but we communicated, they laughed at my big hips, admired my jeans, and got my dress done perfectly. They also thought it was hilarious that I went to hide in the back to get changed instead of doing it in the middle of the shop!

I think the time I spent there gave me a good insight into how they work, I bet their eyesight is shot because of working in the dark, but conditions seemed OK to me. No idea how much they get paid, but they all had mobiles and fancy nails. I am sure there are places which are not so nice but actually looked a pretty good deal to me compared to the women toiling in fields or hawking stuff in Hanoi.

Okay thanks. I went there about a year ago and, like everyone else, got some clothes tailored. Ever since, I've been increasingly worried that I ignorantly supported some kind of horrible sweat shop operation servicing Hoi An and its hordes of westerners. I hope your account is indictive of what most of the manufacturing is like.

I had some clothes made in Hoi An during my visit in 2004. I happened to go down one of the side streets from the main area, and saw people in small houses doing some of the sewing. I also saw a place where the fabric is spun (I don't know if that is the correct term.) Judging from what I saw, it did not appear as some type of "sweat" shop. My thought was that these were people who made a living sewing, and were good at it. Also, if you wandered into the Hoi An Cloth shop where there are many vendors selling their services, you will find much of the sewing going on there in plain site of customers.

To be clear, those who work in the "sweat shops" are assigned to a simple task (much like mass-producing items in an assembly line) which hardly requires any skills and knowledge in the cloth-making business; and because of it their working conditions are often overlooked. On the other hand, clothes that are tailored to individual orders are made by skilled workers, many even spent years to learn the trade, I am pretty sure the tailors in Hoi An are subject to nothing inhumane--you can buy your stuff on a good conscience now.

Good observations, gcd - any Vietnamese with a mobile phone is one who is more fortunate than a good proportion of the population. They don't worry too much about OHS over there :b

quite stoked that someone thought to ask the question.

i'm in hoi an now and have been apprehensive for the same reason (especially after recently reading No Logo by Naomi Klein - that hammered the point home even though i was already converted to the cause). i'd spoken to a couple of people earlier in my trip who reckon they saw factories on the outskirts of hoi an that looked a lot like sweat shops but - as Quasicesium mentions above - i couldn't get my head around how individually tailored stuff would fit into the 'production-line' nature of those factories turning out mass produced products with set materials and sizes.

maybe the above posts are spot-on and its ethically sound to have clothes tailored in hoi an. i guess you can never be sure.

i'm a paranoid shopper at home - try to do a bit of research if ever i need to buy things - though maybe it's partly as an excuse not to shop at all as i've always disliked the whole procedure. even in Hoi An, i already have everything i need and more so why bother? nevertheless, i may succumb if i stay here long enough.

loving hoi an - great atmosphere, gorgeous buildings in the old quarter and it's awesome to find some quieter, low-traffic streets in the middle of a town.

I had some clothes made in a family owned shop opposite the An Phu hotel and they worked as they pleased.