I recently traveled to India with my 10-year-old son for a friend’s wedding. I had less than two weeks, three days of which were filled with wedding events, but while there I wanted to do something that's usually cost prohibitive in the United States: I wanted to get a made-to-fit custom suit, sport jackets, slacks, and shirts.
I bought all of this and a pair of cufflinks for less than $1,000. The materials were only marginally cheaper than in the United States, but the labor was nothing and the skill level was much higher than I commonly find near home.
The high cost of labor and high cost of living in the United States are distorting. In India, you have a highly respected tailor (called “master” by everyone in the store) whose establishment is connected to a shop where you buy fabric in much the way independent optometrists are connected to lens crafters. In India, you might get a custom-tailored polyester blend suit. In the United States, you would never do this; the labor would cost so much more than the material, you might as well buy the best material.
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