It is barely 10am on a Saturday when I arrive at Alice Otieno’s tiny tailoring shop within Nairobi’s Lang’ata estate. I am a long-time customer and I need a simple replacement of a broken zipper on one of my trousers, but she will not attend to me for close to 20 minutes.
She is busy taking and noting down body measurements of three women I found at her shop. She is barely done with them when a fourth woman arrives with a roll of fabric ready to be taken through the same process as those ahead of us.
