We originally had plans to go to the tailor with my co-worker Hanh on Sunday, to spend the afternoon designing and ordering all of our ao dai and my wedding and bridesmaid dresses. But on Friday afternoon, Hanh phoned us from the tailor and told us to come right away. I knew this would be an exciting occasion, and it was my chance to get dresses made with Hanh there to translate, but I was pretty stressed out because I felt very rushed and unprepared.
I ran out the door from work, jumped on the first motorcycle (xe om) I could find and zoomed back to the hotel to grab a groggy and surprised Carly. I quickly explained to her that we needed to go, now! While Carly threw her shoes on, Pip text-messaged us the address of the tailor. Carly and I went outside to barter a xe om. After a few unfruitful attempts, we finally found a driver who would take us for the right price. We decided to get on the xe om together to save time and hassle. Unfortunately, our driver was pretty chubby, so there was no room on the motorcycle for all of our feet. To avoid falling off, poor Carly had to hold up both of my legs with her arms while I held onto her stomach, and we zoomed through Friday rush hour traffic like that!
The tailor’s shop was beautiful, situated on a famous silk shop street near the Kim Ma bus station, full of young assistant tailors and bolts of fancy fabric. Ngan An has won gold medals in Vietnamese fashion in 2000, 1993, 1992, 1989 and 1984. She is also a designer for Miss Vietnam every year and is frequently featured in international fashion magazines. She is especially known for her “fresh reinvention of the traditional ao dai.”
Pip had brought her laptop to the shop, and I had my USB drive with our favorite ao dai photos saved on it. We showed them photos of the ao dai we liked and thought it would be easy after that because we had been so clever. Little did we know that the following three-hour process would be so physically and mentally exhausting!
A flock of crazed Vietnamese women fluttered around us with measuring tapes and notepads, squawking in two languages, while poor Hanh tried to interpret for all of us simultaneously. I was sweating profusely and my throat was parched. I was especially nervous when they measured my rear end. Using the back of a receipt and Pip’s cel phone as a calculator, I strained my brain (and I think I busted some blood vessels) to convert the bridesmaids’ measurements from inches to centimeters. Then in a combination of dramatic role-play and Hanh’s exasperated translations, I think (hope) the crazy tailor women have some inkling of my poor bridesmaids’ sizes…
“Ivory-colored silk instead of white?!? It’s not normal!” they’d say. “But that’s what I want!”, I would say, stamping my foot.
“In Vietnam, the color blue means sadness.” “But this wedding is not in Vietnam!!!”
“If you have a lotus flower, you have to have lily pads too.”
“Who says?!”
“Do you want big sleeves or small sleeves?”
“Huh?!?”
“Regular buttons or Chinese buttons?”
“HUH????!!!”
After quite a lot of sweating and some hilarious multi-cultural debates, Hanh helped us finally get what we wanted. Now we are the proud owners of beautiful, tailor-fitted, custom-made traditional silk ao dai that we designed ourselves! They’re even flying a famous silk painter up from Saigon to put the final touches on mine. And yes, I’ll have the Chinese buttons.
Afterward, we took a taxi back to our hotel, gulped down about three liters of water each and then collapsed in exhaustion. All in all, I’m very happy. Without a doubt, I will have the most interesting (and definitely most original) wedding attire New Orleans has ever seen. And the best story to go with it!
Stay tuned for more adventures of The Amazing Crystal…
