My sister was recently engaged, and as engagements go, it is always a beautiful affair for family involved.
There is so much that occurs in the process of planning an engagement or a wedding, and hers was no different - especially considering how she had very specific ideas about how she wanted things to be.
She chose to have a dress made for the occasion, and picked a designer at random called N.M based on a suggestion from our well-meaning aunt. She was impressed by the sketches that were produced at the first session based on what she wanted, picked a design that she liked and put down a deposit for said dress.
She and her fiancé then decided to have her shoes made by Ms M. Unfortunately she didn't have the same luck as she had with a dress and her designer suggested that she email over some sketches for consideration, and my sister could then pick and choose designs that she liked and the process would follow on from there.
Weeks passed and my sister received no word from the designer, despite a couple of reminders about her shoes, which was always followed up with a promise to email through some sketches.
The engagement neared, and after multiple calls, a date was finally set for the first fitting, after my sister's insistence.
Ms M cancelled at short notice twice for the fitting, once the night before and once a couple of hours after the scheduled fitting, with minimal apology - after my sister had specifically taken the day off to fit around Ms M's schedule.
Third time's the charm supposedly, but as she was driving to the boutique after work, she received a text from Ms M asking for the fitting to be pushed back a couple of hours. While frustrated, nevertheless she agreed to the request and had dinner with her fiancé at the surrounding venue.
Ms M finally arrived and texted her, to which my sister informed her that she was currently having dinner and would be in shortly.
As my sister idly played with her phone, she noticed Ms M's immediate Tweet: Putain putain putain.
"What in eternity?"
For those inclined, putain is a French swear word; while in traditional French it refers to a whore, it is colloquially used as the word fuck.
She and her fiance finished dinner and walked into her boutique, where Ms M and her mother were present, and she immediately asked for an explanation.
As expected, Ms M backpedalled. "It's French."
"I know it's French, and I know what it means ."
"What does it mean?"
"It means whore."
"No it doesn't," she said, dropping voice down as she cast a furtive glance to her mother, "It means the f-word."
Regardless, a long conversation ensued, with Ms M's mother jumping in and apologizing for her daughter's behaviour and the miscommunication between them. She apologized for the delay, and informed them that they were currently understaffed.
Max, my sister's fiance was the voice of reason, and he told her they understood, but it was important to communicate this to their clients, because they had no idea what was happening.
On top of that, the dress wasn't even there, and hadn't been finished apparently due to the staffing problem.
In any case, my sister and Max left, after arranging another date for a fitting.
It would have all blown over - until the series of Tweets that night. Tweets being angry at my sister, accusing her of swearing in front of her mother (apparently talking about the meaning of the French word whore constitutes as swearing), and personal attacks about her character (Ms M had one through the effort of actually contacting my sister's old coursemate for a proper bitchfest), in addition to mentions in her personal blog, which was personally upsetting for my sister.
For those inclined, my sister spent four years of UITM as a mass comm student where she graduated top of her class and received the Deans Award, at the cost of choosing to befriend those from the debate society as opposed to the rest of the mass communication students, to which she was considered antisocial and friendless by other mass communication students. In those four years, she travelled extensively to represent UITM in debate competitions and represented Malaysia in several youth conferences in the environment.
But I digress - that is just a sister's overprotective slap in your face.
In any case, when the fitting finally came around, my sister rocked up with a couple of her friends, and I'd turned up with my mum to pay for the dress.
It was awful.
Not quite a disaster, but my sister has curves, and the particular cut of her dress meant that it had to be cut particularly well - which it was not, and ended up making her look fat. I saw the helpless look on my sister's face, and I knew she didn't know how exactly to communicate her distress without possibly starting a whole new barrage of online warfare.
The corset was bigger, with a visible zip, and upon our request to change it into an invisible zip, Ms M kept insisting that there was no way of doing that.
The lace that was chosen for the kebaya top had been cut incorrectly so the actual kebaya didn't quite balance, and was slightly longer on one side as opposed to the other.
In addition, the train of the skirt was about probably 6 inches longer than it was meant to be.
Whenever we asked her for constructive criticism, she kept saying that it looked fine from the comfort of her chair, and was totally uninterested to the point that she had to be asked directly to make changes. She kept insisting that the changes we wanted couldn't be made either.
It may not sound like much, but when you are being charged RM800 just for tailoring, I think a client has a right to want her dress to look perfect, and at least feel as if her designer or tailor has some interest in making sure that she is emphatic to how her client feels.
When my sister went back for her second fitting, not much had changed, and my sister chose to take her clothes to a second tailor to be fixed - which was done perfectly and without complaints.
Ms M may have made a name for herself in the small industry of Malaysian designers, she may make some beautiful clothes and she may have the skill and the claim that she has worked with the house of Elie Saab.
However, her attitude towards those who may not be considered high fliers in Malaysian society or potential clients leaves me a little cold towards her.
She is new and yet lacks communication with her clients, and doesn't seem to believe that her clients wants and needs seem to account for much. Even though she may have been frustrated at a client, it was not professional to attack them personally or to reach out to a mutual friend in order to get information about that client, in this case my sister.
The world is small enough that people have come to me and dished out dirt about her past about her family, her life in France and her life in high school, but there is no need for any of us to splash that around.
I can only hope that her attitude changes in the future, and she learns a little more professionalism along the way.
13th April 2011 - This post has been edited to shorten the name of the designer due to threatening messages I have received from said designer's affiliates. However, I refuse to take down this post on the basis that all I have said is true - I will address any confusions regarding the content in the comments below.
