Puthiyamputhur readying up its garments for Deepavali

Tailors busy stitching up garments at the tailoring units in Pudiyamputhur in Tuticorin district on Friday.Photo: N. Rajesh
Tailors busy stitching up garments at the tailoring units in Pudiyamputhur in Tuticorin district on Friday.Photo: N. Rajesh

Production of readymade garments at Puthiyamputhur has gained momentum ahead of Deepavali festival, to be celebrated on November 10.

Now, tailors are busy stitching garments with power machines in garment units at Puthiyamputhur, a village attached to Ottapidaram taluk. With just sixteen days left for the festival, readymades were being consigned to most of the garment shops across Tamil Nadu.

This year also net-designed and embroidered churithars remained top-picks and were produced mostly to suit buyers’ demands, T. Manohar, president, Clothes and Readymade Garment Traders Association, Puthiyamputhur, told The Hindu on Friday.

With the advent of technology, designs of readymade churidhars were photographed with smart phones and sent through ‘whatsapp,’ to buyers for approval before tailoring. Besides, buyers were also placing orders after taking a look at the sample garment. Unlike the previous years, quality of the dress material, design have improved and cost also increased. The fabric was procured from Surat, Bhilwara, Mumbai and Ahmadabad.

Churithars made of fabrics including soft net, silky net and other varieties of ‘thousand putta’ and ‘matti net’ were top choices among buyers selling in garment shops. Churithars were stitched to suit people across ages – from three to 20 years, he said.

On churithar designs, he said long, collar-typed, coat-type ones were all produced at prices ranging from Rs.250 to Rs.800.

Further, he said a remuneration of Rs.70 was given to a tailor for stitching a garment. A tailor could earn a minimum of Rs.700 to a maximum of Rs.1, 500 a day, if he worked from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Most women in the houses at Puthiyamputhur and its surrounding places were also engaged in stitching garments that were collected from garment units. But, K. Raja, former president of the Association, expressed dissatisfaction over the prevailing trend. He said readymade garment business at Puthiyamputhur had been facing a declining trend year after year since garments produced at Calcutta, Nagpur, New Delhi, Mumbai and Indore at cheaper costs were being pushed into the market.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> National> Tamil Nadu / by Praveen Paul Joseph / Tuticorin – October 24tth, 2015