Aladdin's Cave

We were fabric shopping in the blok M area of Jakarta. Pasar Mayestic is one of the city's textile centres, a metropolis bustling with buildings, cars, people, street vendors, and shop upon shop of fabric. It's grubby and you have to do some searching, but it's worth the visit.
Janette is soon to be a Mother-of-the-Bride, and we went searching for the perfect material in the perfect colour for her to take back to Perth for the creation of the perfect dress! Of course, there can be no sneak peaks of her purchase. Suffice to say, it took less time than expected and we found something very special.
With this task ticked on the list, we could wander, and I took the girls to the haberdashery shop - a real fire trap absolutely full to bursting with every imaginable sewing notion! And now you must picture kids in a candy shop!

Haberdashery hanging from every inch of ceiling space, wall space, counter space, floor space!

Buttons in rainbows of colour lining the walls. (What you see behind the girls is such a small sampling of the walls of colour.) Jacqui chose some for a new blouse and I almost felt sorry for her trying to decide which to choose from the hundreds and thousands available!

I found a display of roll upon roll of ribbon. I chose a few metres and the assistant who cut them happily - well sort of - obliged me with a photo.

We travelled next to the tailor with our purchases. Here he and Janette, using pictures on the iPad and her new doodling app, with lots of hand gestures, hatch a design...

...and negotiate a price and finishing date.

Jacqui is fitted for her pretty new blouse (stay tuned), and she got to be the super model for some other creations this tailor is working on.

So all in all, a productive outing! We return to our tailor friend tomorrow to pick up our garments and we are looking forward to the big reveal. Perhaps we will convince Jacqui to do some more modelling and I will be able to show you!