Women in production
My earliest memories of women sewing were when my mom would take me to a tailors shop in the market to see my school uniform. We would first make a stop at a stall selling fabrics where my mom would haggle the price of the red checkered fabric for my ‘daywear’ and the plain blue cotton fabric for my school shirt with the polyester dark blue for the pinafore. It was always so exciting seeing bales of fabric even though we always got the same fabrics. Then we’d make our way through the throngs of busy people until we’d reach the tailor’s stall. I forget the seamstress’ name as many times as we’d visit, what a shame. I’ll call her Lady T. Mom and I would climb up the unfinished stairs made of cement blocks and into this stall that couldn’t have been more than 150sq ft. Yet inside that stall fabrics of every assortment were strewn about with markings to denote who owns what. ‘My customer!’ Lady T would bellow upon seeing us, ‘what are we making today?’ Even though she knew it couldn’t be anything other than my school uniforms. I got to explain what I wanted made. As Lady T took my measurements I would always have her make my pinafore just a little tighter and hike up the hem just a bit. Not having to go back to school for a new school year with old uniforms was such a treat.
Lady T is one of many seamstresses in Nigeria. They serve the local community and are generally a one-person shop, with little opportunity to scale up. As I fondly think about Lady T, I wonder whether she imagined expanding one day. I wonder if she thought bigger than her 150sq ft market stall. I wonder what she would have done if she were met with a large scale production proposal. Would she expand and buy more machines? Hire more hands? Would she have loved to work with other women on projects? Saints and Psalms partners with factories that employ trained seamstresses on their production line. These factories draw fashion sketches, design patterns, make samples and provide full scale garment production.
If you believe in this mission and want to partner with one of our factory networks through us, write to us at info@saintsandpsalms.com or by clicking this link
Due to economies of scale we are only accepting wholesale orders.