By Ainsley Walters, Contributor
Tailor Winston Thomas has seen better days at his shop on East Street. - Contributed
IT WAS NOT so long ago when parents would stand vigil over tailors' shoulders during August, awaiting their sons' khaki suits for that September back-to-school morning.
Nowadays, the rush is no more. Tailors, such as Winston Thomas of JT's Fashion, are pointing fingers at cheap imported "ready-made" suits, available at the drop of a hat in stores and wholesales all over the island.
"You can't blame them," he said, referring to shoppers who now flock merchants for khakis, selling for as little as $500 per suit in downtown Kingston.
The nagging parents are gone but so too has a lucrative and dependable market, the kind which small businessmen such as Thomas depended on to supplement lean times.
"It's a bit slow because of importation... the free market system," the career tailor
lamented.
"This importation of finished products, I don't know how they work it out, selling a pants for $500 with costs such as electricity. Probably it's cheap labour or a stronger dollar where they're coming from."
Thomas has seen better days at 69 East Street, just below East Queen Street, where he has had a shop for the past 15 years.
"Ohhh, there was plenty overtime back then," he recalled. "We had to run from seven in the morning until 10 at nights doing uniforms. I used to make suits for Ammars, now it's cheaper for them to import."
The garment industry on a whole, Thomas said, has been on the decline, faced with rising utility costs and cheap imports.
"Nobody is learning the trade anymore," he said, referring to out-of-work youngsters who might previously have become apprentices.
Still, "some people really don't want a ready-made suit," he stated. They don't want "to turn the corner and see someone in the same outfit."
These days, Thomas looks forward to contract jobs, sewing uniforms for corporate customers. He has two employees, but when he gets special contracts, he takes on additional help.
"We're a dying breed," Thomas said. "Those clients who remain with us are only the good and faithful ones."
