Adventures with Daisy
Guest post by Matthias
Monday morning
I’m in the Lotte Hotel in the middle of Ha Noi; I know I want a suit but I don’t know from where, so I Google it.
I see plenty of results for suit shops, but after some digging I’m warned by various forum posts on the subject that the majority of these are not to be trusted because they overcharge tourists and cut corners on suit quality. Luckily I find a post in a closed Trip Advisor custom clothes thread from 2016 that is boasting about this tailor by the name of Daisy, with an address at the end. Naturally I copy the address, paste it into my Grab app, walk outside, wave my phone in a moped driver’s face until he feigns comprehension, and start zipping through the streets of Ha Noi. (To be clear I am looking silly af clutching this stranger’s love handles while smooshing my fro with a white moped helmet, though after about 3 minutes I gain confidence in my moped chauffeur and am leaning back taking selfies and even hittin a lil milly rock.)
20 mins later we arrive, I guess. The man points to a half-hallway-looking hole in the wall, lined with colorfully drab-looking women’s clothing with a sign above that reads “Royal Silk”. I proceed inside. Based on the post that got me here, I know I’m looking for an older woman named Daisy—unfortunately all I see entering the hallway is a little girl sleeping in the back. I gently awaken the girl and ask “Is your mother here? I’m looking for Daisy, I want a suit”. The girl pops up, giggles to herself and goes, “Hello, I’m Daisy. You want suit?” I nod (embarrassingly) and she gets to measuring. Her English is great, and as she measures every circumference and length my limbs have she asks me, “How many suit? How long you stay? Where you from?” I answer “One suit, I leave Friday so 4 days, and I’m from Boston near New York.” (EVERYBODY knows New York.)
Daisy lets out an audible sigh of relief. “That make me very happy.”
She then goes on to explain to me that her last job—which she had just finished the day before and was the reason for her state of slumber—was a total of 27 suits for a customer that was in Ha Noi for only 2 days. To repeat, DAISY SEWED TWENTY SEVEN CUSTOM SUITS IN TWO DAYS. I later learned it wasn’t even two days: they got in Friday, asked her for the suits Saturday morning, and had to pick them up before they left Sunday night. She banged this out in less than 24 hours. Naturally I was dumbfounded and I had to ask how? How could one person sew twenty motherfucking seven custom motherfucking suits in less than twenty four motherfucking hours? She sweetly replied, “No sleep, no eat, just sew sew sew.“ The world does not deserve Daisy.
Her measurements are done, she has jotted down all my numbers in her notebook (feel free to use them to make me another custom suit), and she asks me the question:
“What color you want suit?”
I promptly reply:
“Orange.”
Her eyes widen, she bursts out laughing.
“Orange? Tan orange? Brown orange?”
“Nahhh like Orange orange, like bright orange, this orange,” tapping a blob on the colorful backpack I had haggled for the day prior.
She goes, “Ooooook…we go to marketplace. You OK with Moped?”
“Yes, I love Moped.”
I’d like to pause here to discuss the fact that Daisy asking me that question was an indication that previous customers had visited her and were so wary of riding on the back of a “scary, dangerous Vespa” that they rejected Daisys hospitality and called a taxi instead. If you ever find yourself in Ha Noi DON’T be one of those people.
If I thought my last moped helmet was silly, I was in for a treat. Daisy steps on a stool to reach a handle dangling from the entryway of her store and pulls down a metal corrugated sheet to lock up shop. She then walks over to her moped parked out front and hands me a bright pink Hello Kitty helmet. Recognizing the aforementioned silliness, she takes my phone and snaps a pic.
I then get on the back of her vehicle and we head off to marketplace number 1. For the record Daisy is a fantastic driver: very smooth with her stops and starts but still willing to take risks in her swerves and lane weaves. I loved every moment of it. We touch down at an outside market with countless vendors in tents covering stacks of fabrics. Daisy begins hopping from vendor to vendor; I ignorantly af don’t understand a word of the language being spoken. After feeling like a looming iron giant trailing this small woman from stall to stall she turns around—
“Most suit color uhhh brown or black, blue or gray but no orange, orange very hard to find”
At this point some of the vendors she had tried are attempting to regain her attention while pointing to fabrics in shades of light tan or bright brown, but Daisy knows better. She stands there arms crossed, holding her chin, pauses, and says—
“OK”
“OK?”
“We go now, somewhere different.”
I nod excitedly and get back on the bike. We drive not much further out—maybe 7 minutes—to a sizeable entrance on the side of the street, pushing street carts while pulling into the parking area where other motorbikes are. She pays a woman sitting close-by a presumed parking fee and we enter marketplace number 2—this one’s indoors. Upon entry I see nothing but food—tables and tables of fruits and vegetables, snacks, and meals, but just food.
“Very big market, follow me.”
I do, and we go up a large concrete stairwell.
This is it, this is where I’ll find my orange. I’m immediately overwhelmed by the endless rows of stacked fabrics accompanied by various sitting or sleeping merchants. Silks, cottons, corduroys—you think of it, it’s there in every color, print, and pattern. I can see designer prints, such as the iconic Burberry plaid fabric, in every color and shade and in that moment I realize this is where fakes are sourced. We try 6 more vendors until eventually we find the orange. (I thought we had found it 2 vendors ago, but upon closer inspection Daisy showed me that it was a women’s suit fabric and was in fact very sparkly.) Daisy points to the finally located orange suit fabric and the female vendor who was Candy Crushing it prior to our arrival whips out these fat ‘US the movie’-style scissors and cuts a wide piece of the orange fabric. Daisy pays her and we get to the (more) fun part.
“Now you choose fabric for suit inside” she says, pointing to the inside part of her wool cardigan like it was a bright orange blazer.
I follow her through more countless stacks of fabric until we reach what I can only guess is the silk section (in case you’re wondering, they’re no signs or anything indicating what fabrics are what or where or any of that). While we’re walking, I decide internally that I want a colorfully printed fabric for the inside of the suit. Once again we go from vendor to vendor until I find a light blue silk paisley-print fabric with gold accents. I point to it, Daisy does her thing, the vendor gets to snipping, and the suit ingredients are ready to go.
Now Daisy stops me, takes some pics of me in this market, and asks me, “You want shirt too?”
I shrug. “Yeah, why not?”
“What kind collar?”
“Mandarin?”
She tilts her head.
“Uhhhh like a band, a circular band around the neck.”
Still no response.
“You have picture?”
I pull up a Google image.
“Ohhhh yes, can do, we call that ‘Chinese collar’.”
Now this next part is a bit embarrassing. In case you haven’t picked up on it, Ha Noi is not a city of NBA athletes. My build, skin, height, and hair stuck me out like a Black person on a hockey team—to put it bluntly this city was not sized for me. On top of that, these vendor setups are very close and tight, like ass to ankles. So here I am, 6’3″, with my backpack, bumbling around the cotton section looking for the right print like I’m crate digging for vinyl, and I foolishly knock over a whole stack of fabrics on this poor woman who was already in the middle of helping another customer. Many sorrys were said—she was clearly annoyed and didn’t let me help restack the material. I didn’t really love the fabric I ended up choosing, but I obviously felt bad, and any custom shirt made from something I picked out would suffice. So the shirt fabric was purchased, cut, and we made our way back to Daisy’s shop. She and I exchanged info, she called me to make sure the number I gave her wasn’t fake (she didn’t believe it didn’t start with a plus sign), and we agreed to meet for the suit fitting that Wednesday.
Wednesday
Like my other mornings here, I go up to a moped driver with my Grab app open, get their driver code, and hop on the back. However this morning, the driver doesn’t go right away—I see him looking around and looking back at his phone, looking up and deliberately looking at parts of the map that aren’t part of the designated path. So I’m sitting here thinking, “Great, I’m already a little late, this guy doesn’t know where he’s going, there have been plenty of openings in the traffic for him to merge, and we’re still here. He’s gonna be slow and overly safe the whole time, I should txt Daisy that I’ll be late.” Then he starts to back the bike up away from the sidewalk, indicating that we’re going to go, but instead of merging with traffic, he goes speeding headfirst in the opposite direction into oncoming traffic. This conveniently ends up avoiding this giant 7-way intersection and saving us a lot of time.
I touch down at Royal Silk (my 2nd favorite place in Ha Noi behind the 52nd floor of the Lotte Hotel, where breakfast is served) and I see Daisy lounging back, in her usual fringed jeans and wool cardigan. I see no suit so I ask about the fitting, to which she replies it’s at her uncles, and I immediately begin getting excited about the prospect of another Daisy moped adventure. She asks me if it’s raining. I’m from New England, also I’ve heard it can literally monsoon out here, so I’m like, “Nahhhh maybe a lil drizzle but I’ll be fine.”
Daisy isn’t having it.
“No wet for fitting.”
She hands me the Hello Kitty helmet again and pops up the back of her moped to reveal a compartment, where she pulls out a purple plastic poncho pouch (peep the alliteration though). It’s similar to ones we have in the US, but it’s weirdly big.
Daisy unzips the sack and puts on the purple poncho and then goes, “For you and me.”
I nod, pretending I know what she’s talking about. The poncho’s long, so I assume she means that I’m supposed to sit on the extra bit of plastic hanging off the end to keep my posterior from getting damp.
Daisy stops me. “No, no, two heads, two heads, see?” And she pops her hand through a hoodie hole in the back of the poncho that I swear she just made appear. I’m hyped. She shoves my head through the hole and just like that we become Barney’s two headed cousin.
We skrt skrt once again through the streets of Ha Noi, Daisy giggling all the while at my dragon jokes / impressions. We eventually swerve down an alleyway and end up at her uncle’s.
It’s a nice two-story apartment space, and we stay on the first floor where all the sewing machines and fabrics are.
I instantly spot my unfinished suit hanging against the wall: bright orange and beautiful as ever, missing an arm and with a rough lapel outline, but I can see that the finished product will be a masterpiece.
I try it on. Lengthen here, shorten there, mark it up with chalk. Her uncle speaks no English so for the most part I’m just awkwardly standing here as they presumably discuss my dimensions and critique my figure. After a bit, he takes it off and brings the jacket back to the sewing table (which has another pair of those giant US scissors on it). Daisy hands me a glass of tea, which was room temperature thanks to a few ice cubes she placed in it. (Technically ice cubes are a big no-no when travelling abroad but fuck it, Daisy’s the homie and I ain’t about to disrespect the homie.)
While I’m sipping she goes, “Matthias I look and look but no find orange buttons.”
Once again the curse of trying to find orange anything in Ha Noi strikes.
She continues, “I can make cloth buttons but that take longer time.” (I can tell this is not the option she wants.) “Or we find custom buttons.”
I choose the latter.
She jumps up. “OK we go to button store.”
By this point her aunt is at the doorway watching—she speaks a little English. As we start to get back on the moped, once again donning the two headed poncho, Daisy gets a call. So I chat with the aunt, talking about how silly the poncho is, to which she replies, “Me have jacket like this but threeeee people.” I then convince her to take our picture, which Daisy only notices halfway through and makes us retake because she wasn’t ready for the first shot. (She also asks me to delete the first pics…I didn’t, sorry Daisy.)
We once again whip out of the alleyway and onto the streets, stopping at a button store after 10 mins. Before I can even form an opinion Daisy decides it isn’t good enough and we hop back on the moped to another shop.
As always, Daisy is right. The contrast is clear: this new shop has shelves upon shelves of buttons in wood, glass, silver, and gold. After some fingering through I ”settle” with some fancy gold ones. Daisy haggles with the storekeeper, gets the buttons, drops me off, and tells me to meet with her the next day to pick up my finished suit.
Thursday
I do and I am not disappointed. I won’t go into too much detail about the price of the suit because I was told it was a special price (which could’ve been a lie), but I will say that I’ve bought 3 or 4 suits for weddings in my day and this one was ⅓ if not ¼ the price of others I’ve obtained—all while being much much higher quality.
In short Daisy is the best, visit Ha Noi, get your custom suit on, and glow up your wardrobe.
