One shop, six machines, and a drawer full of cards
We have measured about two thousand eight hundred people and we still have the cards.
Why the measurement card matters
Fehumaa opened in 2011 with two machines and one tailor doing alterations for the shops on the same street. The work that built the shop was not the interesting work. It was hems, waists and zips, thousands of them, done properly and done by six o'clock.
The thing we did early and have never stopped doing is writing measurements down. Every person we have made something for has a card with their name, their fifteen measurements and the date. It sounds like housekeeping. What it means in practice is that a customer who was fitted for a shirt in 2019 can order two more by telephone in 2026 and they will fit, and that the second suit does not need the two fittings the first one did.
The ladies section came in 2014, in the room behind the shop with its own door onto the lane. It has a lady tailor, a lady on the counter and a fitting room, and no measurement of a lady is ever taken anywhere else or by anyone else. That is not a policy we advertise as a favour. It is the reason half our regular customers use us at all.
There are four tailors now and six machines, including an overlocker, a buttonhole machine and a heavy machine for curtain hems. We take uniform work in runs of fifty and up, and we turn it down in the three weeks before a school term starts because those weeks are already promised.
The people who do the work
Mohamed Naseer
Opened the shop in 2011 with two machines. Cuts every suit himself and is the one who will tell you a waist cannot come in six inches.
Sithi Rahma
Runs the room behind the shop and does the kasabu work by hand. Takes every ladies measurement in this shop and has done since 2014.
Hussain Latheef
Cuts the uniform runs and the curtains. He is the reason a size run of five fits forty people instead of needing a second week of alteration...
Aminath Sheeza
Keeps the measurement cards, quotes the alterations and sends the monthly invoices to the trade customers.
How long things take
How long does a suit take?
Three weeks and two fittings. The first is at the basted stage, when the jacket is loosely held together and anything can still be changed, and the second is for sleeve length and the trouser break.
We have made suits in nine days and it costs a rush rate and one of the two fittings. If your date cannot move, come four weeks before it.
Is same day alteration real?
For a hem, a waist, a zip or sleeves brought in before three o'clock, yes, ready by eight the same evening. After three we will tell you whether it is tonight or tomorrow and we will not say tonight unless it is.
Clothes needed for an event that evening go to the front of the queue. Say so when you hand the garment over rather than hoping we will guess.
When should uniform orders be placed?
Three weeks for a first order and two for a repeat, and that is after the sample garment has been approved, which usually takes another three or four days.
We do not take new uniform work in the three weeks before a school term starts. Those weeks are already promised to the schools who booked in the holidays, and taking a fourth order would make all four late.
Do you keep my measurements?
Yes, on a card with your name, fifteen measurements and the date we took them. There are about two thousand eight hundred of them in the drawer.
That is how a repeat order needs no fitting. It is also why we ask you to come in again if it has been three or four years, because measurements move and a card from 2019 is a starting point rather than a promise.
Come in and ask
Iskandharu Magu, Malé. Saturday to Thursday until ten at night, and the ladies section until eight.