My wife had three vintage dresses that she wanted tailored in time for two weekend parties. Fitted in January, the owner said he could meet the date, which was more than a month off. A week before the parties, she called him to make sure the dresses would be finished. He said they would.
My job was to pick up the dresses on Saturday morning because she was at work. Well, the man hadn't even started on the work, after all that time, despite all those promises. Nothing. He made a lot of excuses about not having enough help, etc ... Then he said he'd rush one of the dresses through and have it ready by closing time -- not only too late for us to get to the party on time, but leaving her with no other options for the next night. He got very defensive and hostile and demanded to know why she needed more than one dress. I explained it to him, but he had a horrible attitude and a surprising temper. He ranted about how his other customers are willing to wait for HIM to get around to their clothes because he was such a great tailor with 50 years experience, blah blah.
Since he was so strangely aggressive, my wife decided she'd rather just take them back (wear some other dresses to the parties) and get them done at another shop another. Golden Needle is VERY EXPENSIVE, and she didn't want to spend hundreds on some rush job.
As I waited, he took the time to rip every needle out of the dresses from her original sizing so they would have to be redone. That's his right, I guess, but it shows how very bitter and vindictive he was, though I never raised my voice to him. In short, if you need tailoring work, especially by a specific date , go elsewhere. This place is too expensive to treat people this badly. If he had been half-way nice we probably would have cut him some slack.
more