Nineteen years ago Cherie Ifill started working with her mother because she did not have anything else to do.
Her daughter was four years old and she was tired of being home so with the knowledge gained in her needlework classes at the Princess Margaret Secondary School she headed for her mum Lanetta Thorpe’s tailor shop in James Street, The City, where she assisted with the hemming of garments.
If ever there was a proverb that would apply to Ifill it would be “a stitch in time saves nine”, because even though business has slowed considerably in the last seven to eight years, her steady hands have seen her gaining favour with many people whose suits, jackets, pants and shirts she has altered perfectly, so that they fit as though she made them.
Today, her mum does not make as many suits as she used to but Ifill, the co-owner of L’Cees Tailoring, has been kept busy with talterations for loyal customers, those from the men’s suits store with which she works and those people who walk off the street and request her services.
Ifill told BARBADOS BUSINESS AUTHORITY that when she started, her mother often complained that she was too slow but she never gave up and today she can count a number of top Government officials, including Governor General Sir Elliott Belgrave, St Vincent’s Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves and Cabinet ministers among their valued clients.
“There are things I can get done with a suit that tailors can’t actually get done. I have seen some work that came in here that they had done and had charged an enormous price and was done very, very poorly” she said.
Ifill said she stuck with the alterations and would only make “something for myself”, and as long as she had the customers, “it is a good job to do”.
“It really pays to do the so called ‘simple work’. It may not be simple for others as you might have to take in a waist, a hem, or reduce a pants as a lot of people like slim-fitting clothes now, mostly the men. I actually reduce suits from big sizes to a slimmer fit where you can actually see the shape of the person in the suit.
“I have to fit the suit on them then get the pins and pin it down to their size. Then I have to open the suit, go on the inside and stitch every seam that can be stitched in, which is mostly on the back of in the sleeves or take up the bottom of the jacket which might be too long,” she explained.
Ifill said that she does not cut clothes preferring to work with what is in front of her.
“For me it is easier to pin, go in and reduce the suit. I started to learn [to cut] but I only got as far as cutting out a skirt for myself…” she added with a laugh.
The businesswoman said that because most of their business is alterations, her mother only works at the shop on Saturdays. If someone wants to have something made, such as a skirt/pants suit or dresses, she takes the measurements and her mother makes them.
She said there were times in the past when men scoffed at the idea of a female tailor but that did not deter her mother, who made more pants for the men than jackets these days.
With the trend of buying clothes off the rack rather than having them custom-made, Ifill said she still got a fair share of alterations.
“That’s what you’re looking for; people to buy things off the rack and bring them to me to get them fitted. They don’t make for one person but for everybody, so they’re different sizes. So you’ll mostly find people making clothes that are longer and the shorter person has to get them sorted to fit them and that’s where I come in with the adjusting.
“Sometimes people go buy a pants and to get it to fit in the legs they might have to buy a bigger sized pants and have the waist reduced and that is what I do too,” she said.
Business, she noted, was so plentiful eight years ago that she now has six machines thereby reducing the volume of work she has to do by hand. She continues to be grateful for each customer, and her aim is to continue to make them happy one stitch at a time. (Green Bananas Media.)