Meet Hong Kong’s Most Famous Suit Maker
2:15
THE SHOP, ON RECORD
Meet Hong Kong’s Most Famous Suit Maker
Lynn Hampton visits the Nathan Road shop for the BBC in 2015 — the wall of photographs, and the hands behind it.
A short-form portrait of the shop at work: three generations of cutters, a client list that reads like a press archive, and the reason half the traveling world books a fitting before it books the rest of its trip.
The 24-hour suit, the hand-canvassed chest piece, the chalk-and-scissors routine unchanged since 1957 — all in two and a half minutes.
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Read the full transcript
There are thousands and thousands of shops here in Hong Kong’s Kowloon District, but hidden in this little shopping arcade is one of the world’s most famous tailors, who counts Hollywood celebrities and even royalty as his customers. Manu Melwani and his father began working in the shop in 1957. Back then they made about two suits a day. Now they make an average of 25, including for some very recognizable faces. These are the ex-prime ministers, that’s Mrs. Thatcher, and these are The Beach Boys. Manu’s son is next in line to take over, making him the third generation to do so. I asked if he felt any pressure to keep it going. I couldn’t imagine someone giving me enough money to sell it, so yes, it’ll stay within the family. What happens if your grandkids and your kids don’t want to take over? Again, there’s no pressure, and I think for a long time I said to myself that I would never want my kids to do this. But seeing how good things are and seeing how much we can advance this business in the coming years, I think it would be an interesting dynamic for them to work in. You say that finding new workers is a big issue. As a young generation, they don’t want to be a tailor. They want to sit in the office, want to work six hours a day instead of 12 hours or 18 hours. It’s an antique business, this is. So how do you plan to grow the business? By doing nothing, to tell you the truth. Things are great, and we’re not being short-sighted at all, but we deal with something finite. Our success is down to something finite, which is our workforce, that you cannot grow and you cannot grow organically. Nobody’s growing up wanting to be a tailor, okay? It’s tough to cajole someone into doing this, it’s even harder to then train them. So no, we’re not going to do anything to grow. We’re going to stick to our core product and our core values, and that will bring people in. That philosophy is clearly working. More than 90% of the business at Sam’s Tailor comes from overseas, and many of them are repeat customers. Lea Chi, BBC News, Hong Kong.
