My Greatest Learning Project Since Graduation (Part 3)

 

“A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist”

Artists are a rarity. Even good craftsman are hard to come by in a world of mass manufacturing.

Making friends with the sewing ladies gave me the opportunity to get to know the stories of each one of them, how some of them had been sewing all their lives, how they spent the early part of their career making a full garment. During the empowerment programme, I was also very impressed by how much initiative and effort they put into their work. 

I still do not doubt that their sewing skills, experience and passion are assets. But the changing economy has put them in a disadvantaged position. In the 80s, the sewing ladies were required to sew the whole garment. As the sewing industry evolved, scale, speed, productivity became the drivers of profitability. To achieve these goals, many sewing tasks were de-skilled and broken down into smaller and simpler tasks. Specialization to achieve higher productivity also confined workers' skills to some parts of a garment.

By the 90s, the handful of garment factories in Hong Kong were mostly confined to doing OPA (Outward Processing Arrangement) whereby workers in Hong Kong would only be sewing some parts of a garment e.g. the collars, shoulders and seams to qualify for tariff benefits. By the time we started taking orders, I realized that the skills of the sewing ladies at the social enterprise workshop had degenerated and it took a lot of effort, communication and motivation to help them revive their skills once again. It was challenging both for myself as I am not a garment expert and it was challenging for them because they had to practise very hard to catch up.

Doing customized garment making is an area which cannot be substituted by mass manufacturing. The social enterprise workshop can offer flexibility, quick turnaround and be able to fulfill small orders. But at the end of the day, products have to meet market standard. There are so many obstacles that have to be overcome, including sewing skills, limited access to fabrics and trims, and productivity in order to justify the high labour costs. As of today, I cannot confidently say that there is a compelling business case. Today I was having lunch with one of my most important mentors and a true role model Ada, and she assured me that now is definitely not the worst time. "The worst time is when you get an order which demands very high quality, that will be the worst nightmare..." I know it will be tough, but I also hope that day will come, since this would at least mean that the business can survive until then.