A retired dressmaker tailors leftover cloth into girls’ dresses.
On an ordinary afternoon, 81-year-old Lin Zhe-hui (林哲慧) loads his carrier tricycle with girls’ party dresses and peddles to an elementary school near his home in New Taipei City’s Banqiao District. At NT$150 (US$5) a piece, Lin’s handmade dresses are a bargain compared to those from children’s clothing outlets.
Lin worked in the garment industry for five decades before retiring in 2001. With plenty of time and leftover cloth on his hands, he started to tailor scrap material collected from a local wedding gown manufacturer into dresses for his three granddaughters.
The granddaughters soon outgrew his creations, so Lin started vending the dresses at nearby markets and schools. For the first several years, business was slow except for the graduation season. It was not until mid-2018 when a customer posted Lin’s dresses on social media that he saw a drastic spike in sales.
The booming business, however, has not brought much change to Lin’s life. He continues to cut and sew every day just as he has for decades. Only now, he does it for his own enjoyment rather than to make ends meet.
—by Jim Hwang
With five decades of experience in the garment industry, Lin has mastered every step in the manufacturing process from pattern making and cutting cloth to sewing the final product.
The size of the cloth scraps means Lin can only make dresses for young girls.
Lin turns pieces of material collected from a local wedding gown manufacturer into party dresses for young girls.
His tricycle loaded with freshly finished dresses, Lin heads to a nearby elementary school to peddle his wares.