English: pregnancy at 8th month (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Anna Shetty has been expanding rapidly these past few months and being the concerned mother, I thought I’d help her out with her shrinking wardrobe. Her initial idea was to borrow some of my clothes and for a while I was flattered: after years of being told how awful my clothes were, she was actually willing, nay wanting to get into my shirts???? The joy was only short lived when she found that while the clothes fitted  her girth, they were falling off her shoulders leaving her with no option of getting her own. 

Shopping for maternity clothes

Now if you are pregnant in Bombay and want to shop for maternity wear – DON’T even try. Most shops don’t have clothes for pregnant women – you are just advised to buy clothes in a larger size. And those shops that do sell maternity clothes have ugly, dull coloured ,shapeless garments that open down the front.

Tailoring a better option?

So I decided to tailor my own maternity clothes for her. After hunting down my old notebook where I’d written down instructions on how to make a draft, I sat down to making a paper pattern relying largely on my wits and my foggy memory. I took out my old sewing machine, cleaned it up and oiled it and laboured over two days to make the perfect maternity outfit. Alas! It was not to be. With a garment that was made to measurements that were neither hers nor mine, it was no surprise when it fitted neither of us.

With my enthusiasm thus dampened, I decided not to waste time and fabric sewing the clothes myself but getting them stitched from the local tailor. Rajesh Tailor who lives down the lane squeezed my order in and gave me four shirts which were reasonably “fashionable”. With stretchable tights worn below Anna Shetty managed quite well till I realised that while these clothes covered her bump, they were most unsuitable for feeding the baby.

This led to a mad scramble to get something organised before the baby was born. 

Going back with more fabric to Rajesh was not an option because by now he was not only completely confused with my instructions of making something large but not so large and fitted but not too tight, but completely fed up as well and flatly refused to make any more clothes for me. This left me with no choice but to go  down to Navinbhai my tried and trusted tailor of over forty years. 

But, I should have known better. Navinbhai is a specialist of sari blouses and at best a Xerox tailor or one who can copy perfectly. Moreover, he is notorious for taking his time and has occasionally delivered the garment just after the event. But I am the eternal optimist and gave him two lengths of beautifully patterned fabric – soft cotton that would be perfect to wear in hospital. I spent ten minutes patiently drawing out the design, explaining how I wanted the lace to be positioned,how the garment should flow gracefully, how the neat opening down the front should not hurt baby and above all dinning into his head the importance of getting  the garments ready BEFORE the baby was born.

After two weeks of intense badgering and hounding,Navinhbhai gave me a call informing me that the clothes were ready me and I hot footed it to his shop, pleased as punch that finally I would get the perfect maternity wear. I even imagined setting up a new line of business –  Great Expectations: Maternity wear for the Fashionable Mum . I was gob smacked  when he held up the garments : there were not two dresses but THREE. Obviously there was a HUGE gap between my concept and his reality because the long flowing knee length dress I had envisaged was now converted into TWO baggy tops that barely covered the bottom !!! When I asked him how he could make two garments out of material meant for one, he just shrugged his shoulders and said ” But there was so much cloth!!!”

Moral of the story : Sari blouse tailors can only make sari blouses and expecting them to do anything else is not great but downright foolish.