Award-winning tailors from Taiwan are helping to design the future of a traditional industry.
On a tree-lined section of Taipei's Zhongshan North Road one afternoon in August, a motorcade of 12 jeeps bore Wu Ping-nan past cheering spectators to a 300-seat banquet laid out on the broad pavement. Many of the tailors along the street laid down their shears, needles and irons to celebrate Wu winning the runner-up prize for men's clothing at the Golden Needle and Golden Thread International Competition at the 31st World Congress of Master Tailors (WCMT) in Berlin this year.
A tailor from a clothing shop nestled below the elevated motorway on Civic Boulevard a few blocks away fared even better at the competition: Chen Yung-jen took the top honor in the women's clothing category. Even as relative newcomers to the WCMT, Taiwan's tailors, it seems, have landed in the catbird seat.
In total, 46 contestants from 23 countries gathered in Berlin. They were asked to work on a suit with fabric mailed to them before the contest, sewing by hand in front of the judges. The completed garments were then worn by models, who showed off the fit of the clothes in motion. Aside from designing on cue, contestants design specified garments on the spot to demonstrate their drawing skills.
The competition was the latest showcase for Taiwan's tailors, who have begun showing their stuff in international competitions. In 2000 Taiwan hosted the biennial conference of the Federation of Asian Master Tailors, significantly boosting the nation's visibility in the regional network and putting it in touch with the WCMT, which it joined in 2003.
This year, in addition to fashion shows, the WCMT for the first time launched a contest for tailors aged between 22 and 40. It was in this category that Wu and Chen qualified for the men's and women's competitions, respectively.
Despite the honors granted to the Taiwanese tailors, business back home on the island is facing serious challenges. "Talent shortage in the younger generation is a universal problem, not only in Taiwan," says Ko Chin-fa. As president of the Association of Taiwan Master Tailors and deputy chief of the 25-member Taiwan delegation to Berlin, he knows exactly why the WCMT held the contest to encourage new blood in the trade.
In the past, it was not difficult to find young men willing to apprentice as tailors. Many traveled to Taipei, like Lee Wan-chin from Taichung and Chen Ho-ping from Keelung, in their mid-teens to learn the trade. Newly hired apprentices are paid on a piecework basis, while qualified tailors are salaried. The Council of Labor Affairs administers a three-tier examination process for the trade, and although there is no definition of what constitutes a master, it is most likely a title conferred for seniority rather than skill.
Taiwan's master tailors were a testament to a truly international profession that was divided into two categories: native Taiwanese clustering in the fabric and tailoring district of Dadaocheng, who learned their skills from the Japanese; and mainlanders along Zhongshan North Road from places like Shanghai who learned from Europeans. "At its prime in the 1970s, Dadaocheng was covered with tailor's shops," Lee recalls. The business underwent a downturn after mass-produced suits emerged in the mid-1970s, resulting in cheaper suits and harder times for custom-suit makers.
In the West, the superior fit of bespoke clothing became a signifier of social status, and tailors naturally found work creating the wardrobes of the middle and upper classes. The suit in Taiwan, however, has a different story. Like imported goods or ideas anywhere, suits were initially an exclusive luxury for the wealthy. The climatically inappropriate foreign attire, introduced largely during the Japanese period (1895-1945), was worn for highly formal occasions. Since Taiwan's rapid urban drift began in the late 1960s, the Western suit has replaced traditional clothing and become commonplace for urban salary workers.
Bespoke suits these days range from NT$20,000 to $300,000 (US$600 to $9,000), depending on the quality of the materials, the style and the time taken to make them. The bread-and-butter fare for most tailors falls around the NT$35,000 (US$1,100) mark, while an off-the-rack outfit from a local retailer costs about NT$5,000 (US$150). With such a huge spread between custom-made and ready-to-wear clothing, tailors are still for the well-off.
Handmade clothing is popular with customers like Chen Shiun-hung, a corporate executive. "The perfect fit of a custom-made suit gives me confidence," he says. Once a frequent customer at Giorgio Armani, he visited Chen Ho-ping's shop for the first time two years ago. "An off-the-rack Armani suit costs me about NT$70,000 (US$2,120)," he says, "but with the same money I can get a suit that actually fits me and is made from material of my own choice."
Custom clothiers, however, have taken a beating from the prevalence of ready-made clothing and from the importation of foreign brands. Ko thinks the impact of the latter is less serious because of their high prices. The current slump has much to do with the broader economic picture as well, he says, as more and more corporate executives, who constitute the major part of tailors' clienteles, have moved to China.
Ko says that there used to be hundreds of tailor's shops in his hometown of Changhua, but today only 3,000 survive in all of Taiwan. Many of their operators are nearing retirement and worry that their businesses will die out. "I want my son to be a tailor, but he's not interested at all," says Ko. "That's a pity because I've really built up a solid clientele."
The task of reviving the trade is now the responsibility of youthful tailors like Chen Yung-jen and Wu Ping-nan. Chen took a less conventional path to the trade by starting his career at a later age. An electric engineering major in college, he would not have thought of entering the labor-intensive profession if he had not met Lee's daughter. Concerns about the safety of his job as a lineman, requiring him to climb multistory buildings to install wires, further pushed him into the comparatively risk-free environment of his future father-in-law's tailor shop.
At 26, Chen Yung-jen began his apprenticeship struggling with needles and thread. As his father-in-law says: For beginners, a needle is as heavy as a hoe. Sewing endless buttonholes to perfect technique made up his daily workload. Chen recalls that he often dreamed of the next step, sewing sleeves, during those long hours.
His positive attitude enabled him, little by little, to improve his drawing and fabric-cutting skills. Chen puts a much greater value on the notes he took observing masters in the shop than on books about the craft. Humility, he says, plays an important role in the learning process. "It's no use just talking to masters. You have to learn from hands-on experience."
Wu Ping-nan's entry into the business stems from his personal desire to look good. "The custom-made suits I had were expensive but not very good, so I thought about making clothes for myself," he says. His cousin and mentor, Chen Ho-ping, also goaded him into an apprenticeship. Wu left his hometown of Keelung for Taipei at 17 to stay and work with his cousin, already a tailor at the time, before moving on to complete his apprenticeship in four other shops in the city. "I didn't want to stay in the same place too long," he says. "I wanted to learn more by wandering around." In 1993, one year after Chen Ho-ping took over the shop on Zhongshan North Road from his Shanghai master, Wu joined him again.
In the early days of his career, however, there were times when he thought about quitting. It was not easy to be an apprentice back then--masters were strict and authoritative.
"They'd hit you over the head with a ruler if you scorched the fabric," he says. Nowadays, such mistakes rarely happen as technology has improved. "Today the power cuts off automatically if an iron overheats."
Indeed, it is easier to be an apprentice today, but for Wu this trade still poses challenges--if he wants to maintain a good reputation. "Whether you're an apprentice or master, you have to work 12 hours per day because we produce quality hand-made suits," he says. Meanwhile, he emphasizes that both he and his cousin are still trying to absorb new knowledge because the business is actually part of the fashion industry. "In the information age, business development shouldn't be based on the master-apprentice model only," says Chen. "We should pay more attention to what's happening outside Taiwan." He has been abroad several times to meet foreign tailors, bring back fresh designs and has computerized his management system.
As Wu Ping-nan and Chen Yung-jen are maturing as tailors, much credit should go to their mentors, who have played major roles in guiding them into the business as well as paving ways for their futures. "We communicate with each other easily because we're just four years apart in age, and my cousin never hesitates to teach me," says Wu. "Besides, my success is also his." Responsible mainly for cutting fabrics in his cousin's shop, Wu is now Chen Ho-ping's right-hand man, taking care of the business when the boss is away.
Similarly, Chen Yung-jen's future looks bright partly due to the full support of his mentor and partly to the fact that he has married into a business which he and his younger brother-in-law, Lee Chih-cheng, will inherit.
Internationalization is also proving a boon to the industry. The WCMT has announced the decision to hold its next contest in Taipei in 2007. "Young tailors want recognition, and the best way to get it is through competition," says Lee Chih-cheng. Obviously Chen Yung-jen's and Wu Ping-nan's prize-winning performances abroad are already inspiring their juniors. Without a doubt, 2007 is the best opportunity for the tailors of Taiwan to show the cut of their cloth.