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Tailors in cities across the country had always turned back customer’s orders from first week of November pparently to reduce pressure on them as well as to enable them finish orders made early in the year before Christmas. This year, however, with the approaching Christmas, there seems to be a different as findings revealed that tailors are still accepting orders from the few customers that are coming forward with materials. Simpson Achum, a fashioner in Ikeja, Lagos, says unlike last year when by this time he was no longer accepting orders from customers, he has left the option open this year due to low patronage. “It is usually not like. I think this might have to do with the economic crunch situation especially the bank crisis. One of my dependable banker customers has only placed an order for one suit as against three last year,” Achum said. Also, Ngozi Onyekwere of ICI Garment, one of the major clothiers in Aba, attributed the low patronage to the economic situation in the country. According to her, teachers and other civil servants are being owed salaries in arrears and in that situation; making new cloths will be secondary in their scheme of needs. “Even when they have occasions to attend, they will use their old cloths and keep whatever money in their hands for other things” “Before, people come in here and place orders for 10-20 suits for personal use, and now when such customers come, they order for 2 or 3 suits. For example, I have a customer- a lawyer, who makes10 suits per month, from January-October, but this year, I only saw him twice and when I asked him why, he said there was no money. “Every year, we accept materials and orders from customers beginning from January to October and stop by first week of November, except urgent ones and the customer pays extra for such services. We do this to reduce pressure on us and also not to disappoint our customers,’ she said. Given the right environment, Onyekwere observed that Aba tailors have the capacity to provide Nigerians cloths needs. According to her, Aba is where everybody comes to make suit and after getting it done; they take it outside the country to sell. Some of the suits sold outside Nigeria are Aba made. Even those in Lagos, come to Aba to make their suits. “For instance, somebody gave us an order of about one thousand pieces of suits to make. Some of these customers sell these suits outside Nigeria like in Ghana, Cameroon and Kenya. Such customers do not use our labels; they have theirs that we fix on their orders so, that nobody will know that the products are made in Aba,” she affirmed. “Aba tailors are trying, the only problem faced by us is lack of modern equipment. If government can assist us with soft loans to acquire modern machines, Aba made suits will compete favourably with foreign made ones. For instance, assuming we do not have equipment, we couldn’t have accepted the 1000 suit order. We have a cutting machine and that is why we have capacity for such orders, because if we were to cut the materials one after the other, we will not meet up. Our cutting machine cuts about 50 pieces of materials at a go,” she said.