tailor
A profession that makes others more comfortable
The long one is procrastinating, and the short one is timid
Everything just so good
And themselves
Also between vertical and horizontal day after day
Cut your own life
Well street in Shanghai
There are always some treasure tailors hidden
They usually have thread and rags glued to their pants
The façade also looks old and messy
But a good tailor doesn't care about these details
When he pulls out a stylish, trendy ready-to-wear
Those fragments and mottles become testimonies to the accumulation of power
"Little Master Zhao" on Yuyuan Road
Such a craftsman
Master Zhao, 49 years old, is called "Little Zhao" by neighbors. You think he's young? No, it was time across time, and he was the tailor the inhabitants trusted the most.
It looks unremarkable, but when you find out who he's dressed for, you'll be amazed — the Extreme Challenge brothers. Sun Honglei, Zhang Yixing, Huang Lei, and Yue Yunpeng, they can become Master Zhao's "customers" by chance.
In 2015, a little girl in the neighborhood came to him to make clothes. The ready-to-wear made the girl very satisfied, and she felt that Master Zhao's style was changeable and careful. It just so happened that she was a "person in the circle" and recommended Master Zhao to customize clothes for the stars. As a result, the first season of "Extreme Challenge" became Master Zhao's "façade sign".
△ Master Zhao took a group photo with the stars of the "Extreme Challenge" program
Opening a shop is very hard, but the routine and work with artists are black and white. In order to catch up with the recording progress, Master Zhao often changes it overnight, and after the change, he also has to go to the recording site to help the artist adjust, and if it does not fit, he will modify it on the spot.
"I'm too tired to eat." Master Zhao is still a little tired in retrospect, but there is no doubt that this is also an experience that he is most proud of.
Master Zhao's men can produce the most personalized clothing, but his starting point is "monotonous" and "boring".
At the age of 17, he left his hometown of Taixing to earn a living in Shanghai. The "tailor" is the path his family chooses for him to make a living.
At that time, he was young, although he did not like the job, but with the mentality of "being able to go to the outside world to see", he slowly sat down in front of the sewing machine.
Xu is the birth of a piece of clothing, a satisfactory thank you gave him a sense of accomplishment, Master Zhao gradually made up his mind on the pedal: to do a good job as a tailor. This persistence has been more than thirty years.
From the level of the high-rise building, the old street has changed, and the tailor is no longer sewing and mending, making practical warm clothes. The era of a thousand faces has passed with the traffic in front of the door, and "to have individuality" has become a new demand of customers.
Customer requirements are the biggest driving force for Master Zhao's learning. Some customers found Master Zhao and asked to customize the pattern on a foreign website. Master Zhao, who has been dealing with Zhenliang, Kaisimi and Corduroy for many years, has no understanding of the new fabrics and workmanship, so he learns a little through various friends and various channels.
French embroidery like this is a new skill that Master Zhao deliberately got. He had to print out the pattern on the computer, paste it on the fabric, and then embroider the beads one by one.
△ French embroidery
There are also customers who want a specific color, and Master Zhao will dye it himself. The tailor's eyesight, red is also divided into all kinds of colors, a point worse, is not that taste.
Entering the industry at the age of 17, this year is already the 32nd year that Master Zhao has worked as a tailor. "My son was not yet born, so I came here. My son has now been working since college for a year. ”
For 32 years, Master Zhao spent 25 years in Qishan Village. Even when he moved from the village to the outside of the village, the guests still looked for him. The old neighbors watched "Xiao Zhao" become a family and have children, and even "Xiao Xiao Zhao" walked, went to school, and went to college, and everyone was still used to calling him "Xiao Zhao".
It's a kindness and a trust. There are even old customers who have moved from Changning to Pudong, and they are willing to take a taxi to ask Master Zhao to change his pants legs. "Taxi fare is more than 100 yuan!" He said that when he went outside, it was either longer or shorter. ”
This kind of "just right" is the tacit understanding between Master Zhao and his neighbors, and he has also cultivated the most simple friendship in reading each other for many years. Sometimes, with simple copying, Master Zhao will not collect money. At the New Year this year, an old lady with a hunched back enjoyed such "acquaintance treatment". As a result, Grandma said: "Xiao Zhao, I am very appreciative (clear) of the market, at least 20 yuan outside." Today is the first day of the New Year, I will give you 50 yuan. ”
Like many small merchants working hard in Shanghai, over time, Master Zhao has looked down on money, and the taste of human feelings has become stronger and stronger.
"Working age" of 32 years, many people are close to retirement, but Master Zhao can only be a thought for the time being. Although he plans to retire at the age of 60, he still has a knot: to cultivate an apprentice.
He often deals with students majoring in clothing, but Master Zhao still fails to choose a "successor".
"Nobody learns." This is Master Zhao's current career dilemma, and it also tells the embarrassing situation of this artistic ability. Traditional craftsmanship and modern production, the young man's choice of Master Zhao can not intervene, but he still hopes in his heart that there can be some people, starting from a needle and a thread.
To be a master and apprentice is to be fateful, to enjoy the moment but to act on your own. Spanning an urban area, Master Zhao found his spiritual mentor at Fudan University, more than 20 kilometers away, Professor Wang Defeng, a retired "little prince of philosophy."
Once, Master Zhao was a person who cared a lot about customer evaluations, and his heart would be flooded with waves because of a sentence. But after watching Professor Wang Defeng's video, his psychological pressure has been reduced a lot. "Silence is wisdom." This is the text he wrote on the panel, and it is also his philosophy of scripture.
After retirement, Master Zhao plans to put down the needle and thread in his hand, pick up the book, and think in the world of knowledge.
Centennial Yuyuan Road
You Have Xuesen, Fu Lei, Zhang Ailing, etc
Everyone's legendary story
There are also small people like Master Zhao
Serious management of life of the sea flowers
Cross the threshold of small shops
You will be amazed by the interweaving of tradition and modernity
The encounter between the ordinary and the extraordinary
The temperament of Yuyuan Road cannot be defined
Just like handmade clothes
There are no identical pins
Just like the city fireworks
It doesn't taste exactly the same
Human fireworks
Just
Chai rice oil and salt, walking the streets and alleys
But in a story that has been drowned out by time
You can also read a thousand flavors
"Fireworks at Sea"
Record with footage and text
Idle or busy segments of the city
Video | Lee Tak-jeong
Text | Shen Yingjie
Producer | Yang Yechao, Xiang Xiaowei
-End of this article-
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