Beachwear tailor uses old machines with monikers

Just down the road from the Lamu town square and the old Lamu Fort where the second Lamu Arts Festival was launched recently, there’s a sweet little shop that could well be the most colourful store that I’ve ever seen.

The Ali King Boutique is a relatively narrow showcase of cloths; but as the front door is open seven days a week, just one peek inside is likely to attract your attention if you have a speck of aesthetic interest in multicoloured textiles.

For that is exactly what are draped across multiple clothes lines that crisscross the entire store from ceiling to floor.

The first layer starts at eye level, mixed in with several rows of hooks that allow for the ready-made skirts, shirts, trousers, jackets and dresses to all be hung nicely from hangers to entice you to come in and try on one or several items.

They are not all ‘one-size-fits-all’ but these ready-made items are definitely the perfect fit for visitors to Lamu who want to be comfortable, colourful and casual.

Many have drawstrings (in place of stretchy plastic) or simply hang gracefully, like the kimono-styled cotton coats that also easily entice one to buy and wear in the evening on the beach when the tide is coming in and there’s a gentle breeze off the Indian Ocean.

Handstitched

What you quickly realise after being enticed by that first layer of lovely ready-made wear, is that these solo items are probably all hand-stitched by the man at the end of the hall who’s working nonstop on his sturdy foot-pedalled sewing machine.

That man is none other than Ali Eidi aka Ali King who in a real sense is king of his ‘Ali King Boutique’. In fact, Ali designs and stitches most of the kanga, kikoi and kitenge outfits in his shop. But at the same time, he has not one, but three steel foot-pedalled sewing machines, so he’s got staff to help him fill all the orders that he receives every day.

Having given names to his three machines, the one he most frequently uses is ‘Rita’; but he also has ‘Linda’ and then there’s ‘Juki’, also known as ‘Singer’, named after the old fashioned brand name. Yet Ali proudly testifies that in spite of his machines being old and unelectrified, they are all solid metal containing not a single plastic part.

He admits he wouldn’t mind having a brand new Singer machine as it would enable him to embroider shirts in the wink of an eye and thus enable him to make more profits.

Power outages

But for now, he concedes his profit margin isn’t high enough for him to buy such a machine. Besides, he says, with the occasional electrical outages in Lamu being a hindrance to most businesses in town, he has the advantage being off the grid and independent, reliant on his own and his staff’s muscle power.

In fact, Ali says he’s been in the tailoring business for the last 35 years, having started out in his teens apprenticing to his older brother who had started the business. But after his brother closed the store after 22 years and moved abroad, Ali quickly reopened the business, now under his own name and at a more business-savvy location.

Now Ali doesn’t just sell ready-made clothes. He also has unstitched kikois, kangas and kitenges from all over East Africa and the Middle East. They come in rainbow colours and designs, in a wide range of textures, weaves and sizes. What’s more his fabrics are often worn as simple wraparound, both by women as well as men.

So while Ali is busy stitching items to order, which you can sit and wait for while he works, he also has staff that will walk you through all the layers of fabrics that cover every inch of store, from the floors to the ceilings in all three rooms of his jam-packed boutique.