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There was a time when young girls went to schools to learn sewing and homemaking in preparation for marriage.
These days, home economics curriculum is more likely to include product label reading than sewing.
Even with inexpensive imported clothing, there are still some consumers who are willing to pay for a custom-made dress or to repair and prolong the life of quality clothing. And there are still a few tailors and seamstresses out there willing to do the work.
They tend to be in little shops in out of the way places. Winona has at least four. The newest, Twice-as-Nice-Designs, opened last week at 160 Main St.
Owner Terena Watson says she thinks sewing is a lost art. “One of my goals is to teach a little bit to younger girls,” she said. “Mothers tell me their daughters want to learn.”
Watson has been sewing all her life and always dreamed of having her own shop. For years she has sewn costumes for theater companies in her native Salt Lake City. Her work as a costumer for the Great River Shakespeare Festival led her to move here two years ago.
“My goal is to do wedding dresses and bridesmaids dresses, but I don’t want to eliminate alterations. They’re really important,” she said. Recent jobs include projects like quilts, bedspreads, drapes and table cloths.
She calls herself a seamstress because she isn’t bold enough to call herself a dress designer.
Esther Waas has run Needles & Pins since 1993. Clothing is piled high all over the tiny Johnson Street shop.
“I think I got everything caught up once since I opened. I’m never caught up any more,” she said.
There were eight children in her family, and her mother started Waas out making pajamas for her brothers. Recently, she finished making some uniforms for a nurse and a wedding dress, while also doing hemming, zipper replacement.
“They’re not teaching (sewing) in schools any more and I wish they would,” she said. “I taught a couple little girls during the summer. I would like to teach if I had the area.”
Dorothy Chuchna and her husband moved back to Winona two years ago and was happy to find the Shoe Shoppe on East Mark Street for her hemming and clothing alterations. Co-owner Mary Jackson is “not only the best in town, but the best in the world,” Chuchna said.
Jackson says alterations make up the bulk of her work. She credits a former seamstress neighbor, Ila Zieman, for helping her get a start in the business.
“I learned I could stay at home with the kids and make money,” Jackson said. She has a theory that cable television fashion shows has increased business for people in her trade because “they always say take it to your seamstress or tailor.”
“Fashion changes all the time, and people want to look good,” Jackson said. She also has many older customers who can’t easily sew buttons on any more. Changing buttons can change the look of a dress, she said.
Many people buy good clothes that can last a long time, if they are periodically altered when people’s weight fluctuates, she said.
Watson says she is very frugal herself and tries to make things last as long as she can. And of course, having worked in costuming so long, she says, “In the theater, we make costumes to last.”
Contact reporter David Krotz at dkrotz@winonadailynews.com or call (507) 453-3524.
Tailoring wrote on Nov 13, 2006 11:28 AM: