Chapter 3

Threads of Arrow Street, Anjali's tailoring business, came together like the bodice, cuffs, and facings of a garment. In a little time, the flow of alterations and adjustments, stitching and repair, became enough to ensure the immediate future of the business; then to require occasional assistance from her uncle's employees, her own time being worn threadbare with the growing workload.

Anjali was torn by her uncle's regular visits. Design is about an independence of thought. She valued her uncle’s support, but his doctrine was always that of firm conformity to the structured business of repair and alteration of valued garments.

'You will wear yourself out if you continue just to work hard,' said her uncle on one of these visits. 'You need to work clever, not simply hard. The difficulty, for a tailor, is in finding and serving a customer. That is always hard. The opportunity is to get each returning customer to spend more; that is clever.'

****

Anjali was sewing on a button with a bobbin of black cotton for the twentieth time that week, when suddenly her thoughts broke loose and began to run around her head.

'I am in my soul a designer, who sees this grey town and its grey people and longs to bring form, colour and texture to every square and side street.'

She wound the thread tightly around a black button and tied the end firmly beneath the collar.

‘My uncle has the strength and resistance of Herdwick wool. But the wool of sheep from the fells with its sturdy fibres becomes softer when it is spun with the wool of the alpaca. I must find that soft alpaca wool and spin it with my uncle’s firm and resilient business sense.’

It was one of those thoughts that was impossible to brush away. It was a determination thick with consequence.

****

The hard winter, being no invitation to the customer to return quickly to the street, was her accomplice in this endeavour. When the February wind blew another customer through the door, she found the time to warm that person with comforting words, which caused the customer to remain a little longer and give a little of herself in return. When there was nobody else waiting, Anjali went further, weaving her warm words into the fabric of profit by gently questioning what alterations the customer really wanted.

Anjali discovered how to unravel a customer’s firm resolution. The customer, with an established idea of what he or she needed, came confidently into the shop and ran straight into Anjali’s ability to sew just a little doubt into the tightest seam of confidence. Once the customer’s vision of the ‘right thing to do’ had become as clouded as the peaks of the northern mountains in January, it was easy to suggest more extensive and expensive improvements for a garment.

‘Every customer, of course, is different,’ said Anjali to her uncle over a cup of masala chai in the shop’s tiny kitchenette. ‘Yet there is a common thread that runs through every one of them. In the humblest person there is a need for progression and change. The belief that life is a succession of alteration and improvement runs deep beneath the damp skin of that customer who rushes into my shop in the middle of another winter storm.’

It was in these discussions that Anjali saw the colour and form of her ambition begin to appear, like the twill woven through the traditional worsted that her uncle wore when, fresh from his own work, he would make them both a pan of masala chai in the kitchenette.

****

When you believe that your destination is just around the corner it is often the case that there is, in truth, yet another bend in the river to navigate.

‘The time has come to find an assistant,’ said Anjali’s uncle. ‘I have someone in mind that can help you. She is very capable and has proven herself to be dedicated and hardworking.’

Her uncle looked down at the delicate stitches that encircled the calf leather toe caps of his shoes. There was a long pause that Anjali chose not to fill. Without any reaction to fasten on to, her uncle was compelled to proceed without being able to tailor his edict in one of the many ways that he had considered that morning.

‘She is like that broach I bought your mother that never gets worn, as it is too valuable to lose.’

He inspected the leather of his shoes again and then, finding himself provoked, continued without elegance.

‘We need to attach this woman securely into the weave of your company. You can give her twenty percent of the profit of Threads. That is fair and she will not let you down. She has held fast in the roughest of times in my business. With her help you will be able to find the time to think of accessories; those things that will make Thread’s customers return more often - and spend more with you when they do return.’