By Cathy Gatland in Johannesburg, South Africa
My daughter is the designer for a clothing store in a nearby shopping centre called 44 Stanley. Behind the scenes of the elegant, uncluttered showroom is a hive of activity where Mary, Wendy, Gertie and Lucky (plus a few others) cut, measure, pin and whirr away on their machines to bring the designs into being.
I popped in with the problem of an urgent hem to be taken up and no working sewing machine to do it myself – quickly and efficiently taken care of by the seamstresses… but not before I had the chance to tuck myself in between rolls of fabric and hanging garments and sketch them hard at work.
