Vovin's soup

“ steve Says:
June 8th, 2008 at 11:59 am

If you are planning on having clothes tailored in Thailand or anywhere in Southeast Asia, please read this. So many people get ripped off by this that I am surprised that it is never included in the guides nor has anyone I know of written an good guide to negotiating the pitfalls of this venture. It should be a boxed text in LP Thailand. This attempts to correct that.

The first thing you have to ask yourself when considering having a suit tailored in Southeast Asia is, “What do I expect?” If you have some fantasy about getting a “bespoke” suit equivalent or even close to what is produced by top notch tailors in England, New York, and Naples – then reconsider.
What you can get from some of Asia’s better tailors is a bit of hand detail work – and even that is enough to increase the dollar per stitch value of your investment considerably. Bespoke also generally means that you are working directly with the tailor who designs, fits, and cuts the pattern for your garment.

Second, it is important to understand that workmanship is only about 50% of the value of a good suit. The other 50% is material. You could bring all of the tailors of Saville Row to Bangkok and give them a go with a rayon / polyester / sheep wool blend pinstripe and not get a single wearable garment. And, I am not just talking about the fabric, I am also talking about the thread, the interfacing, the lining, etc… You can’t make a 60 dollar suit anywhere in the world using anything except crap material. A suit made of bad material will look like you found it in a ditch after one use because this sort of material simply can’t hold its shape or structure.Making a good suit requires shaping, pressing, reshaping, stitching, shaping, pressing reshaping, etc… until it is perfect. There are also several necessary fittings before a final product can be arrived at.
Most tailors in Asia have absolutely no design sensibility or if they have one, it is very different from your own. You simply cannot trust a tailor in Asia, as you can trust a tailor on Saville row or in Naples, to read your mind and produce the garment that you really want. Here, you have to ASK for EVERYTHING that you want. Now ask yourself, are you in a position to do so – to even know what you want? Well, if you can walk into a shop and say you want a “single breasted three button roll to two button double vented jacket with peak lapels, a natural shoulder, high small arm holes, high waist suppression, floating canvas, a patch left breast pocket, angled side flap side pockets, with a ticket pocket on the right”, then you might be ok. If not, copy this and tell them, became it is probably what you want anyway. The problem is, if you don’t know what it means and why and if your tailor does not speak perfect English, you still won’t be able to communicate what you need to get a good suit.

One warning, tailors in Thailand, even the good ones, love big shoulder pads. This is probably because Thais are naturally small in the chest and shoulders. If you are even a moderately build westerner this can make you look like a football player. You most likely want some shoulder padding, just strongly impress on the tailor to use VERY SMALL shoulder pads.

Not to equate money with value, but sad to say, if you are not ready to spend around 400 USD for good custom tailored suit (this includes fabric), I doubt you will get something worth while. This is about 4 times the street price from the Indian tout-tailors, but at least here you are not waisting your money and will get a garment you can wear frequently and which will stand up in a formal situation. If you are not willing to spend this much, a ready-made product is the way to go. There is nothing inherently wrong with clothing manufactured for companies like Zara, Banana Republic, or the Gap. These clothes usually use 100% wool or cotton, are well made, and designed to fit almost everyone. And if they don’t fit you perfectly, that is when a cheap tailor can really come in handy.

Shirts are one place when you can do very well in Southeast Asia. I have had shirts made from several tailors in Bangkok, Laos, and in Vietnam, and many have stood the test. I have taken several Bangkok made shirts to top tailors in New York and London and they were frequently impressed with the products. Better tailors will have a good selection of 100% cotton.The tailors of Thailand can generally produce a magnificent copy with all of the improvements you might ask for. Pants also tend to be done well here and follow the same rules.There actually are good tailors in Bangkok. Most are on Sukimvit around Asok and Nana BMT stations. The best I’ve found is Savile row Tailor bangkok(savilerowfashion @gmail.com)), but others are also quite skilled and a little dedication and research can turn them out. This doesn’t mean that you’ll get what you want, but at least you won’t get robbed. Look for a tailor that uses 100% wool fabrics from Japan or Europe or bring your own. To test if wool is 100% wool, take a swatch of it and light it with a match. Wool will smell organic and burn a bit. A synthetic with crumble and melt like a plastic fork in a fire. A good tailor will work with your fabrics just as happily as he will sell you his own. His work is making clothes, not selling overpriced synthetics.

”

“ Furtką do psychiki ludzi jest lenistwo, wygoda i potrzeba luksusu. Daj im szczescie jako osiagalny jednyny cel, a będą czym tylko zechcesz. ”

“ To nie fakty nas denerwują, złoszczą, zasmucają, radują, lecz to my sami denerwujemy się, złościmy, przerażamy, radujemy poprzez nasze przekonania o tych faktach. ”

“ Dysonans poznawczy – stan nieprzyjemnego napięcia psychicznego, pojawiający się wtedy, gdy dana osoba posiada jednocześnie dwa elementy poznawcze (np. myśli lub sądy), które są niezgodne ze sobą. Dysonans może pojawić się także wtedy, gdy zachowania nie są zgodne z postawami. Stan dysonansu wywołuje napięcie motywacyjne i związane z nim zabiegi, mające na celu zredukowanie lub złagodzenie napięcia. ”

“

Imperial Stout

Had it not beer for the Russians, Imperial Stout, originally known as Imperial Russian Stout, may never have been produced by the Brits. It was Russian Czarina Catherine the Great's voracious appetite for stout that inspired the brewers of London to create this style. By the time barrels of stout from London reached their Baltic ports, most of it had turned stale. To solve this problem, British brewers produced a highly hopped, high alcohol stout to survive the long journey. Courage, the British brewery that was Catherine's primary supplier, continues to produce its Imperial Russian Stout today, and it is believed to be the longest continuously marketed example of the style. The present day label states that it was originally brewed for Catherine II, Empress of all the Russias, and carries the phrase "As brewed for more than 200 years."

”

“

CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[DropUniqueConstraint]
    @tableName NVarchar(255),
    @columnName NVarchar(255)
AS
    DECLARE @IdxNames CURSOR
   
    SET @IdxNames = CURSOR FOR
        select sysindexes.name from sysindexkeys,syscolumns,sysindexes
            WHERE
                syscolumns.[id] = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].['+@tableName+N']')
                AND sysindexkeys.[id] = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].['+@tableName+N']')
                AND sysindexes.[id] = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].['+@tableName+N']')
                AND syscolumns.name=@columnName
                AND sysindexkeys.colid=syscolumns.colid
                AND sysindexes.[indid]=sysindexkeys.[indid]
                AND (
                    SELECT COUNT(*) FROM sysindexkeys AS si2
                    WHERE si2.id=sysindexes.id
                    AND si2.indid=sysindexes.indid
                )=1

    OPEN @IdxNames
    DECLARE @IdxName Nvarchar(255)
    FETCH NEXT FROM @IdxNames INTO @IdxName    

    WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0 BEGIN
        DECLARE @dropSql Nvarchar(4000)

        SET @dropSql=
            N'ALTER TABLE  ['+@tableName+ N']
                DROP CONSTRAINT ['+@IdxName+ N']'
        EXEC(@dropSql)
           
        FETCH NEXT FROM @IdxNames
        INTO @IdxName
    END
CLOSE @IdxNames
DEALLOCATE @IdxNames

Usage is straightforward:

EXEC [dbo].[DropUniqueConstraint]
    @tableName='TargetTable',
    @columnName='TargetColumn'

”

“

Dozownik objętościowy wolnostojący.

Dozownik służy do dozowania w podstawione opakowania ( torebki, kartoniki, puszki, słoiki ) produktów sypkich ( sól, cukier, kawa ). Dozownik może być wyposażony w specjalny przenośnik opakowania wraz z automatycznym zatrzymaniem pod tubą dozującą. Zastosowanie falownika do regulacji wydajności pozwala na płynne dostosowanie dozownika do urządzeń koncowych linii ( np. zamykarka puszek, zakręcarka). Możemy zautomatyzować cały proces technologiczny począwszy od pobrania opakowania, poprzez dozowanie, datowanie do zamknięcia (zaklejania) opakowania.

”

“

Here is my pre-commit script to forbid modification of tags in subversion. I adapted from one posted by Wolfgang Fritz on a mailing list:.


REPOS="$1"
TXN="$2"

export LC_ALL=C

# Check for modification of tags.
# Reject tag modifications except creation and deletion
SVNLOOK=/usr/bin/svnlook

$SVNLOOK changed -t “$TXN” “$REPOS” | egrep -v “^[AD][[:space:]]+(.*/)?tags/[^/]+/$” | egrep “^[^[:space:]]+[[:space:]]+tags/[^/]+/.+”
if [ $? -eq 0 ] ; then
echo >&2 “***************************************”
echo >&2 “* Modification of tags is not allowed *”
echo >&2 “***************************************”
exit 1
fi

#
# Make sure that the log message contains some text.
$SVNLOOK log -t “$TXN” “$REPOS” | grep “[a-zA-Z0-9]“
if [ $? -ne 0 ] ; then
echo >&2 “**************************************************”
echo >&2 “* You must give a meaningful comment for commits *”
echo >&2 “**************************************************”
exit 1
fi

exit 0

”