SEATED AMONG his industrial-sized sewing machines, Paul Griffith intricately secures pieces of material together at his studio in Fairfield Black Rock, St Michael.
Unmoved by a team from the DAILY NATION, he continues his work with a singular focus as his adroit fingers barely rest in between all the stitching, marking and measuring required for the jacket he is making to take shape.
This is one of many masterful designs he has put together since his return to Barbados last July. Prior to that, he had been honing his skills in Canada for about 20 years.
Griffith began sewing around 1985 when he was just 18 years old. He recalled that it all began when he was awakened from sleep one day and he hopped on to his mum’s little sewing machine. No background, no training or even the know-how to make a pattern, he just made clothes.
He had planned to enrol at the Samuel Jackman Prescod Polytechnic to study woodwork but with no funds, he gravitated to sewing full-time.
“People would call me a girl because I sewed,” he said, laughing.
“I just took up sewing and I would walk around and make the Michael Jackson shirts with the sponge and then after a while, things got better. I moved to industrial machines and I just got home and sew and sew.”
At that time also, Griffith was an aspiring footballer with an unbelievable love for the sport. So much so that if he had to choose between the two, sewing would be shelved.
Though he still sewed a bit, football was getting much more attention. He went on to win several championships with local football teams and even went off to represent the island at a tournament in England.
However, to his surprise, upon his return from a tournament, his shop, then located at another address in Deacons, was broken into. He was so frustrated that he pledged to give up sewing.
Football stint
So in 1996 he left Barbados for Canada to play football. It was a successful stint playing with Magica Roma football club. He also had some trials in the United States but after about four years and not getting any younger, he determined that his future might be in coaching as his contract with Roma was nearing its end.
However, the problem was that coaching required an income and a number of FIFA licences which he did not have.
It was now about 2000 and with that idea out of the window, and still a home and family to support, the father of two picked back up his needle and thread.
He bought a small domestic Singer machine from a guy for $100 and got to work. But people who weren’t aware of his background in Barbados were hesitant.
“I start sewing and I told people, but they say I look like a football player, that I can’t use a machine,” he said with a laugh.
Got frustrated
Even when he got frustrated because the machine would be jumping all over the table when he stitched, Griffith put the doubts of those people to bed.
He started to get some work to the point he was able to afford his first industrial machine. Shortly after, he bought a serger and then credited a blind hemmer machine.
In 2004 when he received his Canadian residency, he registered the business and his next goal was to open a store, but money was the main issue.
Then, as if by serendipity, Griffith wandered upon a space that was for lease. As the old folks say, “you can’t be lucky in coward”, so he went to the store manager and explained his predicament.
“I had no money. It was the last parking spot in the parking lot and I drove in. The woman there said the landlord was away and I went and took the ‘for lease’ sign down. And she asked me why I did that and I said ‘because I want this shop’. I gave her the sign and she told me when the landlord would be back. I gave her $600 for the rent plus taxes and to hold the space for me,” he recounted.
First and last month’s rent were necessary but Griffith persuaded her to hold the space.
“So when I came back I met the owner and I said, ‘I don’t have any money, I’m taking a risk. I can sew, I got good work ethics, I got good skills’. He said that is okay because ‘I start with nothing too’.”
Business for Pablo G Paul started a bit slow. He didn’t have any work so he brought all of his clothes from home and hung them in the shop. However, he came up with the idea to draw traffic to his store after a visit to a pizza shop.
Posted sign
“I went to buy a pizza and the girl say ‘30 minutes or free’, so the next day I put up in my shop a sign that said, ‘Hems in an hour or free’. I started to get people coming just to dare me, hoping to get one free, but I never gave one free yet. I was located next to a gas station and when the traffic started to come for the hems, I would sell them something else also,” Griffith said.
In 2008 when the global financial crisis struck, Griffith’s business was severely impacted. He remembered that he had recently bought an embroidery machine for CAN$20 000 when the collapse occurred.
“One night I couldn’t sleep and I went home and stare at the roof from 7 in the night to 5:30 the morning because I didn’t know how to pay for it; I just stare in the roof thinking. The store got locked up because I couldn’t pay the rent. I slept in my car for two weeks because I didn’t have anywhere to live, and I bathed in the gym. There were times I didn’t have no money for food or gas and would have to walk home. Sometimes it was rough. I didn’t have any family; there was only my son.”
That was when he determined it might be better to return to Barbados.
For two years, Griffith undertook a feasibility study where drew the same conclusion. During that time he was back and forth testing the waters until he packed up and returned to Barbados last year.
Today he has so many sewing machines, he has lost count, but he credits them for the quality of his work.
“You don’t come today and get one thing and tomorrow and get something else; there is always consistency. That is what makes it so professional. What makes me different from other tailors in Barbados is that I don’t tell you I gine do something and then don’t do it. This is a business to me, so you won’t see a whole set of cloth pile up. I make and people collect.
“If you don’t have a business attitude, you don’t make money. You have to be disciplined. If I tell you come for a fitting on Monday, I have to be ready because you might be coming from work and I would throw your day off. I am a professional,” he said. (SDB Media)
