kweejibo stories, August 2012

MADE IN OAKLAND, Part Three, story of kweejibo clothing co., a men's shirt maker and shop, all locally manufactured a continuing series

the story continues of "what to when you get out of school and you haven't a clue"...start a business on Haight Street....

pages 16 to 19

"the Incomparable Beatrice"

the only part of the store design that works is done by my friend the Incomparable Beatrice, the most Perfect of perfectionists, the creator of a most beautiful dressing room in blue and gold, a spoiled princess boudoir. we squabble under the pressure of getting it all together and we were not on speaking terms by the time of the grand opening. i win her back eventually and she does comes willingly. tears, the girlish egos and rivalries.

Beatrice is a story unto herself; she has a look of another time, these enormous hazel eyes, oval face, tiny delicate mouth and chin, with voluminous thick brown hair that looks like it belongs piled up on her head.

she lives in and manages an almost slummy looking apartment building complete with old cooking smells in the hallways; but she keeps her apartment on the top floor in a gorgeous state. it is a shock to walk through the old building with its dark corridors and to open her door to another world, a world that smells of fragrances and cooking chocolate; a world set to exquisite lighting, vintage lamps, set lower than eye level. never use over-head lighting. she says it is terrible for the complexion, almost as if it could be as damaging as the sun. either lovely lighting or just perfect natural light, she always seems to find her light. she has special talent for discovering the unusual, exceptional objects.

her closets contain nothing that is ordinary, every vintage style, every pure costume event. One day I walk through her door, and am immediately fitted into a costume of the Biblical Judith* or Salome**, complete with turban, very small bandeau top, harem pants with dramatic sash. She needs a model to work out the final touches. i hold the accompanying life-size bleeding head of Holofernes or St. John the Baptist on a platter, depending on which myth one prefers.

*Judith defends her city Bethulia against the Assyrian general Holofernes. She seduces him and cuts off his head.

**Salome demands the head of St. John the Baptist as a reward for performing the dance of the Seven Veils. This story could also be a pretext that King Herod concocted for John's execution, as the king fears John's influence over his people.

Beatrice fills her building with many of her friends, who give the place an energy it needs. they are young and fun with no pretention, artists and musicians. there is always somebody to grab a bite with in a local Oakland Chinatown or just downtown place. cheap, really good food. ABC Diner, as in “American-born Chinese”, is a favorite. American-born or just someone of Chinese descent who is very American, maybe does not even speak Chinese, like myself. ABC Diner serves an odd mixture of authentic Chinese dishes mixed with French or Asian-French melange dishes. that is how we explain the succulent fish pie with a true pie crust. not far from ABC in Downtown Oakland, the memorable Stork Club resides, the best dive bar where friendly neighbor musicians play.

Beatrice is the perfect design muse, accessing constantly a well spring of ideas, energy and love for beauty and refinement. she is a vintage junkie, loves the Twenties, Thirties, Forties; we live in this decade of the Nineties which is ripe for every kind of nostalgia. i need the support and inspiration, the validation of someone else's love for the wearable object.

it takes love to design something people will long for, remember to return to. one cannot engage people to love your designs with pure calculation and rationale. one must have some emotions to offer up on a platter.

and yet somehow those feelings have to resemble an item that will hold together, and endure, be a comfortable glove for a body, an item justifiable to others by rationale, calculable by dollars and cents and to be scheduled to a viable period of use.

"production for use"

one channels dreams into a life of time slots, weeks, months, an interminable agenda of production reports, material budgets, detailed production sheets, with the precision of fabric swatches, matching threads, buttons, exact sizing breakdowns, cutting and sewing and ironing schedules, all precise slots which spill over from paper into mind space, keeps me up late.

and the dating begins; the series of relationships with more sewing contractors, similar to unreliable boyfriends. “he” doesn't want to commit. or “he” is very into you but he has these crazy little habits. we have dates every friday, where i show up, hoping to have a good time. but there are no roses, no nice restaurant.

i notice something strange each time. one of the girls working that day at my store says, "these cuffs are all the same size and they are really small!" this is a particular sewing contractor, a rather geeky buck-toothed skinny character, who works with his mother at home. his mother who also happens to be the cutter, and is more pre-occupied with making cookies to distribute to the entire neighborhood, than cutting precise fabric pieces, such as those small size cuffs i find on every shirt of every size.

she is a little woman with glasses, who is always smiling, one hates to yell at her. when he does yell at her, she puts her little mitts over her face. literally, oven baking mitts. sometimes, she resembles a small stuffed animal. he cries when i fire him and I feel guilty, but relieved.

my following relationship is with a well-intentioned young girl, who lives and works in a windowless small warehouse with walls painted black. she listens to music which matched the decor and produces very little but gives me a very important name, Alice. Alice comes along in 1996. i have limped along for four years without her, four years that feel like forty.

without Alice, I am nothing. she has a strong business, in a cavernous dark warehouse which contain long rows of large cutting tables with low-lying fluorescent lighting, and mountains of white terrycloth fabric. the “mountains” belong to her largest client, a terrycloth robe manufacturer for luxury hotel chains. there is a fine layer of white dust that accumulates on everything, including our collection of two hundred different fabrics. the first time i see her, i see only eyes with a cloth mask to guard against the dust. on our first meeting, she almost forgets to remove it to talk to me. sometimes, she does not remove it at all. I discuss shirt construction with the masked bandit.

our two hundred fabric bolts are stored at her warehouse for convenience sake. every week , she will need any random thirty to fifty odd fabrics out of our collection, which she will have to lay her hands on quickly.

Alice is the relationship of my dreams, she transforms my life.

our beginning is not necessarily smooth; i meet her in 1995. she fires me the first time around over a misunderstanding, where I am snippier with than I intended. and a lesson is learned. i can be fired by those that i am paying, not just the other way around. she is big, she does not need me. but she is too polite to actually say it.

I overhear her assistant calling me a “bitch” in chinese. i grew up in a Chinese family and i don't understand Chinese, except for the moments when i do. one day, during a middle school soccer match, I discovered that I understood the words for “that fat kid”. never to be underestimated, the amount of useful information embedded in the subconscious.

i continue on with my parade of hopeless contractors with poor quality and limited numbers. then a year later, in 1996, i return to Alice. I would beg on my knees for forgiveness, but she is too merciful to obligate me. i state simply "i have learned a lot since last year...i have my act together now, our sales are rising and we could really use a good contractor like you!"

Alice goes on to be the sole maker of all our shirts for the duration of our business. a good contractor relationship, it's like meeting the love of one's life. after that, there is no other.

ABOUT Soon Yee Cindy Cho :

graduated from U.C.Berkeley, B.A. in Art HIstory, minor in French Literature and in Theater Costume Design; Language Studies in Bangkok and in Paris

owner of the former kweejibo clothing co. men's shirt design and retailer on Haight Street, 1992 to 2008; living in Thailand Paris and California for the last six years, English teacher and Translator in Bangkok and in remote jungle Andaman Sea islands during monsoon season, snorkel/ocean guide as well as oonservaton assistant, time spent also in Sri Lanka jungles