Where Do Clothes Come From

Most young children question “Where do babies come from?” I, on the other hand, had no interest in that. Instead I was fixated on finding out where our clothes come from.

As a five year old girl, the youngest of four kids, I wanted to do everything my older siblings did. Since I was just a little kid, my abilities along with parental permission were extremely limited. As such, it's no surprise that all my siblings had some kind of hobby that I wasn't allowed to do yet.

Regardless, I wanted a hobby. They all had hobbies that they actively practiced and I couldn't participate. One day I told my Mother that I wanted to have hobbies too! My Mother sat on her bed with a small basket beside her. She rolled her eyes as she told me, “Kyanna, you do ballet. Dancing is your hobby.” I stopped pacing the room to look at my mom and give her sass, but then I froze.

Mom was doing something I had never seen anyone do before. My eyes widened and I was rendered speechless. Mom opened the little basket beside her and from it she pulled out a teeny tiny silver wand. It was barely an inch long and as wide as a single hair strand. Along with that, she took out a cylinder that had the smallest rope I had ever seen wrapped around it. Next, a shiny pair of “big girl” scissors; the kind I wasn't allowed to use.

Then, Mom conducted a magic trick, she fed the rope through the thin silver wand.

Completely stunned, I asked, “How did you do that?”

She then used the scissors to snip the end of the rope, still attached to the cylinder.

As she did this she said,

“There’s a little hole at the end of sewing needles to put thread through”.

I sat beside her and watched her closely. “What is it for?”

Mom replied “I'm just sewing a button back onto your dad’s dress shirt.”

I watched her as she pulled the needle and thread in and out of the four button holes. Every stitch was done with intention. It looked as though it was the easiest and most peaceful thing someone could ever do. In a matter of minutes my dad’s shirt was fixed! It looked good as new again. My mom put away the shiny scissors, needle, and thread back into the basket with doves on the lid. Suddenly I was struck with curiosity.

“Mommy, Where do clothes come from?”

Mom raised an eyebrow and said, “Um… from the mall”

I scrunched my brows unsatisfied with her answer. I already knew clothes could be found in malls. I pressed on, “Okay but where does the mall get the clothes from?”

My mom looked at me as baffled by my curiosity and said “Uh…. Well, I guess the mall gets it from the people who make the clothes?” Mom got up to put away my Dad's shirt and I sprang up chasing after her to ask one last impactful question.

“Who are the people who make our clothes?” I asked.

Mom sighed now a bit irritated because I wouldn't drop this topic.

“Ugh, I don't know, Kyanna! Why do you care?” She snapped.

I looked at the magic basket again and said

“I just want to know. I want to know how they do it, maybe I could do it too?”

Mom smirked and patted my head. She sighed to herself as she put the basket away on a high shelf and said, “They’re fashion designers, make all sorts of clothes out of fabric and put them in malls for us to buy. I don’t know anymore than that. Now, I gotta go make dinner, are you coming?”

I thought about it for a minute, about where she had put the magic sewing basket. I wondered if my mom would even notice its absence if I took it for a little bit.

“No mommy, I think I want to go play dress up for a bit”

“Okay just don’t mess with your sister’s things.”

Those instructions were the exact words that made me remember my sister has scarfs and those scarfs are fabric! If my mom could so easily mend a button back into a shirt, how hard could making a dress out of sissy’s scarfs be? I was certain that I could do it. I was determined to make something beautiful. I felt in my heart that this was it! Sewing is going to be my hobby! My very own hobby!

I just had to get my hands on that basket first. So I did. I took it to my room and stole my sister’s orange scarf along the way. The scarf was made of wool-like material. It was long, thick, and I could wrap it around my whole body. Perfect for sewing, I thought. I kneeled by my bed opening the basket. I reached in to wield the forbidden “big-girl-scissors” I took a deep breath and said to myself, “I have to make this dress impressive so my sister can’t truly be that upset with me”.

After some haphazard cutting and stripping, my sister’s scarf was no longer what it once was. With a needle, thread, and lots of frustrated stubbornness, I had done it! Around my own body I sewed a dress. A real dress! I even sewed beads onto it with the necklace I also stole from my sister. I looked in the mirror, and I was so impressed, even proud of myself! I was so proud that I ran downstairs to show my mom and sister my beloved creation.

“Is that my scarf!?” My sister yelled.

My mom grounded me from the sewing box and all the scissors! But worst of all, I had very tightly sewn my sister's scarf to body, not realizing that fabric that isn't stretchy needs a method of escape. I couldn't get out of my dress. I was stuck, my mom tried very hard to pull it off of me, but we eventually had to cut it off my body.

Despite grieving the death of my dress, I was more determined than ever to learn how to make dresses. My Mom and Dad could hide all the scissors in the world, but I would always manage to find them. Sewing is my hobby, my passion! Eventually my Mom and Dad caved. I got a hello kitty sewing machine for my 10th birthday, with hello kitty scissors too. They even bought me fabric so I'd stop cutting up my sister's clothes! This gift came with a condition; I could only make clothes for my Barbie Dolls and American Girl Dolls. Needless to say, it was a done deal!

By age twelve I was making full on prom dresses for my American Girl Dolls. My sewing machine and scissors weren't working as well either. It was time for an upgrade. I asked my mom if I could make clothes myself now. She said “If you pay for the materials, sure!” It costs a lot more to make things real-human size as apposed to dolls. It requires more fabric, materials and it takes longer. By high school I got a job to buy my sewing equipment. My Mom stopped hiding the scissors and often would ask me to fix damaged clothes for her.

I'm twenty one years old now, I still sew, and every time I walk into my sewing studio, I get to relive that magical moment when I first saw my mother threading a needle. What I make, from start to finish, is magical. Years of practice, patients, failures, and triumph has led me to find the answer to the question I was searching for. Where do our clothes come from? The clothes we all wear come from skilled magicians like myself. Designers, Seamstress, Tailors, we are the wingless fairies that make some of your favorite things.