Whether you’re visiting Shanghai or living here, you must go to the Shanghai South Bund Soft-Spinning Material Market. The entire building is filled with vendors that custom make suits, winter coats, dresses and so on. Our friends Kin and Alina (bless their hearts) took us where his mother has been a long time customer and the hubs bought some custom-made suits! 

It was fun to pick the fabric (we picked wool, cashmere and some blends) and he got measured. The hubs wanted a super slim cut and told him exactly what he wants. If you’re not too sure, Mr Xia (our tailor) has tons of books where you can look through and pick the style you want. You can even bring in a picture and they’ll replicate it. 

We took our friend Ed there when he was visiting Shanghai and he bought two suits, 3 shirts. He can’t stop raving about the quality and the cut. He even got to pick the kind of collar, cuff and cut he wanted for the button up shirts. Since we’re going back to New York in the near future, he asked us to make 5 more shirts and I can’t believe how amazing they turned out.

In the winter I got a custom fit cashmere coat. I brought in a picture of the coat I like (The red coat above) and he said it was no problem! I picked out the color (blue) and he had it done in less than a week! I wish I had taken pictures of the coat but I forgot and now that it’s spring, I already put it away. It looks exactly the same!!! I promise when winter rolls around again, I’ll take another pic but it’s exactly the same. 

If you go, be sure to go to the 3rd floor, vendor number 326. The numbers are not in a particular order but he’s on the outer circle to the right when you get off the escalators. Tell him Mr & Mrs Liu (刘) sent you, if you tell him we’re the young couple (I’m Korean) and we bought a bunch of suits, he’ll remember quickly. Plus he’s more likely to give you an even better price on top of it already being crazy affordable. You can get suits for around 500RMB and 100RMB button up shirts depending on the material.

Don’t worry, Mr Xia speaks English! I had no problem communicating with him. And he’s super nice!

Info:
Mr Xia Rong Jun
Email: huatai128[at]yahoo.com.cn

 Shanghai South Bund Soft Spinning Materials Market
 399 LuJiaBang Road
Floor 3, Stall Number 326 

The year of the Dragon!

Hello everyone!

Xīnnián kuàilè! (Happy new year in Mandarin) Yesterday was the first day of Chinese Lunar New Years and guess what I was doing? NOTHING. I was in bed since New Year’s Eve. I have some kind of stomach flu that has been awful. No sleep, no food and tons of pain, chills and I am grumpy! 

Started to play mahjong and then I felt sick

We were supposed to spend time with family friends but I became so sick that I had to come home and ever since, I have looked like I haven’t bathed in over a year. I look horrible. I have to laugh because I seem to start the year, every year, sick. Sigh – I HATE MY BODY! Elyse told me to make homemade pocari sweat (electrolytes) by using some sugar and a pinch of salt, I also put in some fresh ginger. I think I added too much salt but my stomach is calming down a little more!

Anyway. On to something else!

While we have been living here we have been told that custom-made suits, coats, dresses are extremely cheap here. An even bigger plus – you can bring in a picture of what you want, you pick out the fabric, you can tell them if you want to alter the fit and haggle till you can both agree on a price. I’m rather excited about this because I don’t think I have anything that has been custom-made from scratch. 

I think once Chinese New Year stuff is over (I think it’s supposed to last 15 days) we are going to go to the fabric markets and give it a try. I know my husband wants a nice custom-made suit and I wouldn’t mine having something a bit stylish. I also want to go to the pearl market in Hongqiao because they also custom make jewelry from pearls there and I read that you can get a range of quality – from the low and cheap to the high and expensive. I don’t need fancy pearls, I just want some to fresh up my outfit. I have a beautiful pearl necklace that my BIL gave me when I got married (and wore for my wedding) and I’m terrified of wearing it in public because it’s so expensive.

I’m going to go crawl back into bed because I feel sick still. We also didn’t have internet for a bit but the internet guy came this morning and fixed everything. Oy. I hate being sick, I also hate not having internet. But before I do, here are some Chinese jackets we bought for our nieces when we moved to Shanghai so they would have them before CNY! Aren’t they cute? They didn’t have an infant size so we bought the smallest one we could find.

Chinese jacket we bought for Aerin

Chinese jacket we bought for Claire

There was a crazy amount of fireworks from 6pm (eve) to 4am (new years day) and even the day after! I had dreams that I was being shot repeatedly and realized it was the insane amount of fireworks right in front of our windows!

I hope everyone has a wonderful, healthy and happy new year! Sending love to my family and friends from Shanghai! XO”