Stitching is just a click away

Online tailoring

The efflorescence of online medium has been exhilaratingly dynamic. The imagination comes to an abrupt stop if one goes back a few years trying to imagine how the world minus online shopping, grocery, health, fashion and almost-everything-under-the sunlooked like.

Undoubtedly, life is a lot simpler now when it comes to shopping. In many ways, the virtual platform has opened business gateways for Pakistan fashion retailers who are wooing Indian consumers through e-commerce.

After launching an e-store of its established Labels brand in August 2012 that offered services not only to fashion enthusiasts of Pakistan, but several other countries, including India, one of the pioneers of Pakistan's fashion-retail chains, Zahir Rahimtoola is now providing services of “online stitching” to national and internationalcustomers through stitchmyfabric.com(SMF).

“Life is a transition and everything connected to human activity is also in transition, from the origins of tailoring where humans sewed their own garments to tailors visiting homes to take orders and then tailoring stores opening up and so on and so forth the cycle will continue to move,” Rahimtoola, the CEO of Labels, tells Metrolife in an email interview.

“We take research and development very seriously. One of the constant feedback that we receive is request for unstitched garment sewn largely from international buyers, we have in the past stitched a number of costumes for such customers,” he adds.

It was only after this, they decided to professionalise the online sewing and develop a custom-made software solution that would make the transaction smooth. To get the fabric stitched in elegant Pakistani silhouette and their famous palazzos, all one has to do is order fabric online from anywhere and have SMF marked as the shipping address so that the same is delivered to them from the online seller. “On receipt of the fabric we will follow the styling and measurement instructions provided by the customer and ship the order within eight working days to any international destination,” informs the Karachi-based entrepreneur, adding the service was launched on September 4.

The cost of shipment will vary from country to country and the deliveries are done through DHL. The stitching price for the Indian market is Rs 630 for a single shirt to Rs 1,900 for a three-piece-embroidered garment.

According to Rahimtoola, the idea of setting up SMF was largely for the convenience of the sub-continental diaspora living abroad who are deprived of Pakistani design and sewing facilities.

“We believe that our process, technology and professionally managed stitching centre is going to bring a smile on your face, forever,”
he concludes.