Among the vast bolts of cloth and clattering sewing machines that occupy Yongle Market (永樂市場) in central Taipei’s Datong District (大同), several tailors studiously continue their centuries-old trade. From within this rabbit warren of fabric stalls that occupy the second and third floor of a drab, dilapidated concrete block, skilled artisans busily occupy themselves with the task of knocking out bespoke garments using acres and acres of cloth. Ornate wedding dresses, vast flowery curtains, sharp three-piece suits and tight-fitting qipaos (旗袍) provide a rainbow of well-stitched color while the whir of needling devices fills the air.
It is within these banks of established tailors’ stalls and traditional outlets that 31-year-old Jennifer Su (蘇芳苹) set up shop after leaving college in 2004. Providing hand-made outfits to a range of clients including high-end designers, TV show art directors, advertising campaign managers, promotional outfitters and Cosplay enthusiasts, the fashion school graduate can pocket NT$60,000 in a good month and has a book full of niche market customers.
“Some designers draw the pictures and I then make their outfits,” says Su. “Some of my clients come from the Internet, but some just look around the market and find me — they see that I’m younger so they think I can understand what they think, what they want … and in general I can find what I need in this building.”
Photo: Paul Cooper, Taipei Times
While Su’s unique tailoring outlet provides a youthful vibe, the market — once the thriving center of Taipei’s cloth trade — has been undergoing a slow and gradual decline.
Located just around the corner from Su’s stall, self-made tailor-businessman Liu Kuo-fong (劉國風) has been running his firm at the market for 20 years. “It’s getting quieter,” he says. “The new generation doesn’t want to make these clothes. It’s hard work designing and making clothes and you have to stand up all day long.”
Liu started his firm on the market’s third floor when it was little more than a warehouse. At the time, his staff would make elegant suits by candlelight. As to the future, however, he predicts that the market will probably morph into a slightly run-down version of London’s Savile Row.
Photo: Paul Cooper, Taipei Times
“It will be haute couture for those who can afford it,” Liu says. “I mean, I still have many customers, but business is slower than before. But I’ve still got loyal customers from Taiwan and the occasional Italian and American passes through from time to time.”
Liu greets Su with a warm hello and says the young tailor is like a daughter. His own children didn’t follow their father into the family business, preferring to seek their own livelihoods. “Young people aren’t too interested in becoming tailors. They know that you can make money, but they think it’s too much hard work for the cash it offers. When I retire my stall will close.”
Su, meanwhile, sits behind her desk cutting out templates and planning for the future. The multi-colored spools of thread lining one wall of her stall helps to lure customers in, while a mannequin sporting a Cosplay outfit adds to the hip atmosphere.
Photo: Paul Cooper, Taipei Times
“I would like to design and sell my own brand, but there are many details, including the money involved.” Su says.
Su and her former classmate and close friend Sisi Chen (陳思宜) discuss the merits of freelancing against full-time work as an employee.
Chen, who works as a designer for a leading shoe-making firm, says her creative ideas are often tempered by relatively strict commercial guidelines.
Photo: Paul Cooper, Taipei Times
“I get my creative ideas in many ways: Seeing the fabric, or the color. The production process also influences my ideas,” says Chen, adding “My company tells me a lot of the guidelines I have to follow, I don’t have total creative freedom. However, I have security in my work.”
By contrast, says Su, “My customers sometimes give me more freedom, but when they want something then I have to do it. My customer is my boss.”
Scores of trendy young people — bedecked in outlandish outfits and sporting many of their own sartorial creations — indicates that this traditional fabric market is attracting a new type of customer. Nevertheless, many of the market’s old-timers say that challenges remain.
The two designers, who have chosen different career paths, both see the potential threat which low-cost Chinese products and tailoring pose to a market which they both value. With more and more fabrics being imported from China, local industries are feeling the pinch.
“It’s impossible to compete with China in terms of price,” says Chen. “But in terms of tailor-made goods, it’s hard to communicate with a tailor in China and you don’t know that you’ll get what you asked for.”
Su agrees and looks lovingly around the cloth-strewn interior of her shop and into the corridor nearby. With a smile she says: “I think there is still a place for this market. Some people still want different things that can only be made here, they want something unique.”
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby