The One Day I Worked in NYC's Garment District

"There's more than one way to make a living in this business."

I remember my dad first saying this to me when I was in high school. He was teaching me how to service old Pfaff machines from the 80s and 90s, trying to get me to understand just how rare it was to know how to fix sewing machines and the inherent value of possessing such a rare skill. He’s not the only person who has said this to me. I’ve heard the same thing time and time again from sewists who come into the shop and are pleased to see the next generation learning the art of sewing machine repair.

“You’ll always have a job, no matter where you go.”

In 2015, I put that statement to the test. It was the summer after my freshman year of college. I was living in New York City and needed a summer job. I had already spent a few years fixing machines for my dad, so I called up a handful of local sewing machine stores within a reasonable distance from where I lived in Manhattan and asked if they were looking to hire a technician. I only received a response from one store, located at the edge of the city. Only in America could a place like this exist. I worked there for a single day.

---

Cale in the NYC Garment District

---

I initially spoke to the owner of the shop over the phone. He wanted me to come in for a “test day” to see what I knew before officially hiring me.

I originally planned to take the subway to his shop, which was outside of Manhattan, but he called me again the night before and asked if I would meet one of his employees in the Garment District instead. His employee was picking up a couple of industrial machines from a customer and then taking them back to the shop in a van, so the idea was that I would help load the heavy industrial machines into the van and catch a ride back to the shop.

The guy driving the van was African. We met in front of a clothing boutique, then parked the van in an alleyway and entered the store through the back door. This store was so fancy. I was completely out of place, wearing a pair of beat-up Nikes and shorts and t-shirt. Meanwhile, the people who worked in this store were dressed to the nines: collared shirts, ruffled blouses, trousers and skirts made of beautiful materials, and these bizarre shoes with a split in the toe that looked like goat hooves.

I helped the African guy carry in an industrial straight-stitch machine that the shop had just fixed, set it into the table, and hook the motor belt onto the machine’s handwheel. We then carried out a different industrial straight-stitch machine, plus an industrial overlocker and an industrial blindstitch machine— all of which were in need of repair— and set them in the van.

As we re-entered the store to check if we had forgotten anything, this tiny British man sitting in front of the sewing machine started screaming at us, cussing at the top of his lungs.

“THIS IS SILK CHIFFON YOU F***ING IDIOTS!”

He waives a swath of fabric in front of my face. There is a jumbled nest of thread on one side, the telltale sign that the user did not thread the take-up lever. When I point this out to him, he yells something about how he’s been sewing for over 30 years and made thousands of garments in his lifetime. But, when we go back to the machine, sure enough, the take-up lever is not threaded.