That "Oh No" moment.

The worst feeling a fashion designer/tailor can have is when it finally dawns on him/her that the client's dress is spoilt.  That you have ruined the whole thing! If you could give anything to go back in time so as to avoid the mistakes made, you wouldn't hesitate. I too have made mistakes so many times, but then these ones i could easily correct. But there was this one time i made an irreversible mistake. What made it more devastating is that the dress was for an elderly woman and we all know how meticulous their opinions can be. 

 

It happened sometime last year during my nysc period. I just started working for one lady as a fashion stylist in her shop, so I had a job to sew some dresses for a lady's wedding. The particular cloth I ruined belonged to her mum and she was to wear it for the wedding thanksgiving. I got straight to work after measurements and fabrics were ready, cutting pattern pieces, sewing and all. The work was quite much and the lady (tailor that owns the shop) offered to help me cut, I agreed and it was remaining that one cloth. Now i take full responsibility of everything that went wrong with the cloth but at that time I lacked wisdom. The lady learnt from a tailors shop, i did from a fashion school and am not saying anyone is better than the other but the methods differ at times. At this time i had not yet learnt how to blend her method with mine, so i just picked what she cut and started sewing. To cut the long story short, the resulting outfit was disastrous, when the customer wore it, it was all wrong. To worsen the case the sewing allowance was very very small, it was so demoralising i wanted to fade away. Instead I put on a very foolish smile and assured her I would have it adjusted. I tried all i could but the cloth was completely ruined (the fabric was white, so you can imagine what the over handling did to it). So I summoned up courage and explained the matter to the bride with as much remorse i could muster. Her mum ended up wearing something else cos i ruined the original one. I felt sooooooooo BAD!!!

 

I went to the woman's office to apologise but she wasn't there, I kept on going for two weeks until I finally saw her and I apologised profusely. She finally forgave me and even gave me another cloth entirely to make on the spot, :D imagine my joy!!! and they remained my loyal customers till I left.

 

What lesson did I learn from this incident;    

 

     - Wisdom: Apply wisdom in all you do, think carefully before carrrying out any assignment. I could have politely declined the help or suggested another one, but i put in line my customers satisfaction so as not to hurt feelings. But when dealing with customers always do everything satisfy them. Never make compromises that could be bad for your clients.

 

     - Never hesitate to apologise: Apologies go a very very long way. Never feel too big to apologise. If people apologised more, the world would definitely be a better place. If I hadn't made so much efforts to apologise for my wrong, not only would they not patronise me again, but imagine what they could have told others about my work. So let us not fail to apologise when the need arises, Pride they say comes before a fall!