Supplies

I went to a tailor's trimmings shop today in the seediest building in the seediest part of KL. The place is occupied by mamak stall foreign workers. The conditions in the building are, however, one step above those in a deportation camp.

But inside is a shop every tailor in KL goes to get their trimmings supplies. It is a small shop, filled to the ceiling with stuff and has scarcely enough room for one to move around.

I saw a very nicely made Japanese chalk sharpener for RM32 there, but ended up buying one at RM55 that according to them was "homemade in Singapore". Apparently, it works a lot better and they use it themselves. See for yourself.

This product of Singaporean cottage industry has what appears to be a modified Daiso container to contain the chalk dust.

I found lots of stuff there that no haberdasher with a shopfront would care to stock.

In particular, the body canvas with the amber stripes is very impressive. Totally uncrushable, springy and quite light. I think I bought 2m of it. The lighter body canvas is less impressive. I also found there several varieties of cotton shoulder pads.

I bought a few coat hangers for RM2.60 apiece and a suit cover. They offered to print the name of my shop on the hangers! Without a shop, I could only refuse.