Tailor-Made

It seems that we’ve approached the age when every single person we have ever met in our entire lives is getting married. We are, of course, happy for them and happy to attend their pre-wedding dinners, engagement lunches, bridal showers, bachelor/bachelerotte parties, traditional engagements and incredibly overblown white weddings. We are more than happy to buy them gifts and put our own jobs and families on hold to help them plan their big day(s). We are thrilled to collect their aso-ebi and celebrate with them in curiously coordinated outfits. (For the uninitiated, "aso-ebi", which literally translates as "family cloth" is fabric distributed by the families of the bride/groom to their guests, who wear them to show solidarity and affiliation). The only problem with said aso-ebi is that, at some point, it must go from raw French lace or simple Ankara to fabulous halter dress or sexy mini-dress . Herein comes a visit to the professional that is dreaded and feared far above any dentist, gynecologist or mortician on the planet; the Nigerian Tailor

If you don’t have war wounds inflicted upon you by a psychotic tailor, you either are not female or you do not live in Lagos. End of story. First of all, there’s the trouble of finding one. You ask your friends because their outfits are generally hip and trendy and mostly well-made. You become alarmed when your friends stop returning your phone-calls and start avoiding you in public. Finally, one of them is kind enough to explain to you that the quickest way to expose yourself as the mannerless, gauche plebeian that you are is to ask another woman who her tailor is. Strike One. You then resort to asking your mother and her friends, but generally the styles that those tailors are capable of are not any that have been seen out in public on the more recent side of 1970. Strike Two. Finally, you decide that you’ll thumb through the pages of the fashion magazines and go with the Designer du Jour. Sure, she might be twice as expensive as anyone that’s been recommended to you thus far, but you’re willing to pay for quality. You are not going to be upstaged at this wedding. Not by anyone. It’s bad enough your dress is going to be made of exactly the same fabric as 665 other guests’ at this shindig.

You get to the designer’s little store on Victoria Island, the front for her mainland operation. Madam is not around (tending to far more important clients, naturally) and her girl will have to take your measurements. Fine, if Madam has put her trust in her, why shouldn’t you? Vamonos! Measurements: taken. Deposit: paid. Fabric: left. All systems go.

You return to the shop two weeks later, as instructed. As a matter of fact, you give them a few days grace period because this is Lagos and things happen and you’re an extremely understanding and benevolent person. The assistant apologizes profusely and tells you that your dress is not ready because the tailor has been taken ill with a violent case of explosive diarrhea, but it’s almost done, please be patient, let him just finish it now now ehn. You are pissed, fuming even, but you figure you’ll sit and wait for it. You make that decision before you spy your fabric, still in its original packaging sitting expectantly in a corner by the wall. That was absolutely the last straw. You call up the designer and are informed by some mysterious character on the phone that she’s off buying fabric in Dubai and won’t be back for another month. It’s just between you and Patience now and she was about to see what happened when you lost all of yours.

You return for your fitting two days later following a sheepish phone-call from Patience. Unfortunately for you, it’s the day of the wedding but you remember observing her as she took your measurements (as you had been warned to do) and she got them just right, so you should be fine. You try on your gorgeous dress -- the one you spent hours and hours poring over seventeen issues of Vogue to find -- and it looks like your favorite part of Old Navy pajamas. The straps are falling off your shoulders, the bust area is pushing your boobs up and flattening your chest at the same time, the sleek pencil skirt is closer to a balloon skirt, the embellishments look like they came off a Christmas tree, the zipper is exposed, the hems are undone, and the dress is not lined. Murphy’s Law is in full effect on your outfit; everything that can go wrong absolutely and most disastrously has.

This monstrosity needs to be taken apart immediately so you grab the tailor by the scruff of his neck and set him to work. He’s clearly still in recovery because he is slow as molasses and by the time your dress has gotten to a state where you would even contemplate wearing it out in polite company, you are receiving calls from your friends on their way home from the wedding, asking if you and the bride are fighting. “If you didn’t want to come to her wedding, why bother taking the aso-ebi in the first place? That’s just really tacky.”

Strike frigging Three.

People spend so much time thinking up catchy names for their hot, new boutiques, but I think every clothes shop in Lagos should be called exactly the same thing; Caveat Emptor. Proceed, dear friends, at your own risk.