Have you looked through your closet lately? If you take the time to look at the labels, you will see that 90% of recent purchases have a Made In China label. Wow. Are the Chinese the only ones who know how to sew? I’m not sure, but I’m thinking these new tariffs may signal the end. No more cheap clothes from China.
When I was a child, “store bought” clothes were for people of means. Most lower and middle class people made their own clothes. Now, sewing your own clothes is a choice, not a necessity.
I still made my clothes until I was about 30. That’s when store clothes got so cheap that it was more actually more expensive to buy the pattern and materials to construct your own garments. A lot of those first cheap clothes came from places like Bangladesh and the Philippines. But now, almost all imported clothes are from China.
Sewing was actually fun. First, you sat down at the pattern table and looked through the books to find exactly the dress or outfit that you wanted. Once you decided on a pattern, it was sheer pleasure to look through all the fabrics and pick out something that would give you a one -of- a- kind dress. You never had to worry about running into someone with a dress exactly like yours, and no one had the slightest idea what you paid for it. We even made pretty dresses out of feed sacks!
Young girls were taught to sew before they were teenagers. My best friend’s mother worked at Singer Sewing shop—a busy store with many customers who paid the salary of this single Mom supporting three kids. She loved her work, even gave sewing lessons. My own mom was kind of a slap dash seamstress, but this lady taught me the importance of following patterns exactly—a skill that has helped me follow directions for all kinds of self-assembled products.
Store bought clothing was expensive in the old days because it was made in America. Garment workers didn’t make much but it was a lot more than people in China, where the average wage per month is $270 in terms of US Dollars. A factory worker in China may work over sixteen hours, sometimes six days a week. The pay for all of this overtime is sometimes as low as 55 cents per hour.