Chapter 149 The Clothing Shop

Chapter 149 The Clothing Shop

These days, craftsmen value tailoring. Even for ordinary fine cloth garments, they will first take the customer's measurements before cutting and sewing them according to those measurements.

Slow and steady wins the race. Xie Wanniang does not deny that the clothes they make are indeed more fitted and exquisite, but they also cannot deny that the price of their clothes is indeed a bit high.

The same applies to shoes and socks; those made to fit the customer's foot shape are more expensive than mass-produced, less refined products.

In addition, their practice has an even bigger drawback: customers have to wait at least half a day or a day to get the clothes and shoes they want.

During this period, whenever she had free time, Xie Wanniang would visit the cloth shops, embroidery workshops, and clothing stores in Yi County. She found that although these places also sold ready-made clothes, shoes, and socks, the quantity, variety, and sizes were quite limited.

The embroidery workshop mainly produces high-end, exquisite, and beautiful dresses. The vast majority of the finished products are custom-made by customers in advance and cannot be sold to others. The few that can be sold are samples used to attract customers, so they can only be sold at a lower price when the samples are no longer needed.

Clothing stores do sell ready-made clothes and shoes, but the variety is limited and the sizes are very small, so a large number of people still cannot buy the ready-made clothes and shoes they like from clothing stores.

The cloth shop was a single establishment that also sold shoes and socks. The shoes and socks were very sturdy, but they were also limited in variety and sizes.

This means that the vast majority of people simply cannot buy suitable clothes and shoes in these places.

Xie Wanniang transmigrated from the modern era. In the modern world, except for a very few people, there is no such thing as tailoring clothes to fit.

Most of the clothes and shoes worn by people are pre-sized by the manufacturers, so they may not fit perfectly, but they are mostly ready-made.

What Xie Wanniang needs to do now is to selectively apply the successful experiences summarized by modern people to ancient times, so that her clothing shop can become the first truly "ready-made" clothing shop in this dynasty.

She still intends to select from among veterans and their families for positions such as tailor, shop assistant, manager, and accountant.

To her surprise, her two sisters-in-law, who had previously made a living by selling embroidery, were also willing to join them as tailors.

After privately inquiring about the reasons behind it, Xie Wanniang learned that although the two of them could earn money and support their small family with their own skills, they could no longer tolerate the rest of their husbands' families.

Their husbands were still alive, but because they were wounded on the battlefield, they could not do heavy work.

Lacking any skills and unable to exert themselves, these two were immediately seen as useless freeloaders by their parents, brothers, and other relatives.

They treated these two families terribly. If it weren't for the fact that the women of these two families could still earn money, they would probably have been kicked out by their so-called relatives long ago.

Just because they weren't kicked out doesn't mean they can live a peaceful life.

Those two young men who were discharged from the army due to injuries clearly did a lot of work every day, but their parents would still point fingers at them and scold them as "good-for-nothings who only know how to eat" and "raising pigs would be more cost-effective than raising you."

Other family members often gave them attitude, and sarcastic remarks were commonplace.

Even their wives and children, because they were "ruined," became lowly beings at the bottom of the food chain in their respective families.

No matter how much they do, how much money they earn, or how many times they swallow their pride, they will never deserve a kind word from their family.

In their grief, the two men also felt guilty towards their wives and children. If they hadn't known that their wives and children would suffer even more if they died, they would have even considered ending their own lives.

Just as they were weighing the pros and cons between "numbly continuing to endure" and "fighting back at all costs," their brothers who had fought alongside them on the battlefield approached them privately and asked if they would like to join them in moving to a different place and starting a new life.

The two agreed without hesitation. They didn't want to stay in their hometown village any longer, living a repressive life where they were being treated as a "burden" or even a "sinner" by their family members, even though they were trying to support themselves.

With the help of the village head, clan elders, clan members, and their respective friends who sympathized with their plight, the two families successfully escaped the terrifying quagmire that almost drowned them. Together with other retired soldiers and their families who met Xie Wanniang's requirements and were willing to make a living in Yi County, they arrived at the shop that Xie Wanniang had just bought.

The new shop and Xie Wanniang's restaurant were on the same street, separated only by a wine shop and a general store.

Before they arrived, Xie Wanniang had the shop repaired and renovated, and she also ordered a batch of clothes racks and two wooden mannequins.

The model has no face, but its hands, feet, and torso are movable, and can be easily bent as needed for subsequent use.

At first, when people saw the two wooden figures standing there, they felt a little uncomfortable, and many were even startled. But as they looked at them, they gradually got used to it.

The wooden figures on either side had no facial features, were smooth but crude, and were not as lifelike as the wooden or bronze figures in the clinic. After looking at them for a while, the discomfort naturally disappeared.

This time, Xie Wanniang recruited a total of fifteen people: one manager, one accountant, three assistants, two embroiderers, and eight tailors in training.

The reason they are called reserves is that even those eight people who are only somewhat skilled in needlework cannot do their work to the standard that Xie Wanniang wants.

In other words, she needs to train all eight of them first.

It's worth mentioning that this time, the accountant she hired wasn't a man, but a young woman who had been widowed for many years.

The girl and her fiancé were neighbors and relatives. Not long after they got engaged, her fiancé was called up to the battlefield. About a year later, news came from the army that he had died in battle.

The groom's parents were heartbroken, but they still went to the groom's house to break off the engagement immediately. They hoped that the girl they had watched grow up could forget her fiancé and find a better match.

The girl's parents and other relatives also thought so, but the girl herself absolutely refused.

She was very opinionated. After her grief, she decided to live as a widow from then on, and she also planned to move next door to take care of her fiancé's parents.

She was also very smart; not only was she more knowledgeable than her brothers, but she was also better at accounting than them.