Fashion Victim!

Since one of the main export products of Vietnam is textiles and garments, you can shop till you drop for clothes and apparel. There are huge productions companies, producing for big brands, so you basically find all major brands here. It's not like in the western world where you have "organised" shops just of one brand. As written in my previous posts, you either buy on the street or in these big markets (like Bin Than). Here a picture of my favourite, the Russian Market:

It's a maze of dealers booths, totally overloaded with clothes, shoes, bags, wallets etc. After going there now a few times, sometimes you are lucky to find a real (in terms of real brand product) deal, and sometimes just very cheap fakes. Today I found shirts of a brand, which is mainly sold in Germany, Switzerland and Austria and I normally buy these shirts there. They normally sell in Germany for 30-50€. Here I paid 30USD for 3 shirts, after bargaining down from 50USD. I already purchased a real brand backpack here as well. Normal sales price in Germany: 100EUR, here around 30USD. They especially sell that brand here, mainly winter clothes (makes a lot of sense...).
However, most of the stuff is fake here in Ho Chi Minh city. There are few brand stores like Adidas, but the prices there are very expensive, compared to the US or Europe, even though much is being produced here.

The other part of getting clothes in Vietnam is tailoring. There are so many tailors around the city especially in District 1 and 3. Especially around the area of the Bin Tanh market. As I didn't bring too many clothes to Vietnam, I tried out one tailer now, which has been recommended on a travel blog. So I went there last weekend and ordered 2 suits and 4 shirts. The place is called Nam Silk. Suits start from 90USD for a cotton suit and go up to 180USD for cashmere wool suits. Shirts are between 22 and 24USD depending of the fabric. Tuesday I went for the first fitting and thursday I could pick up all items. The quality is ok, worth the money. But everything fits perfectly. First time in my life I have 2 perfectly fitting suits.
Textiles is not the only thing you can get tailor made. Today I went to a cobbler, and ordered 2 pairs of shoes custom made. They will be finished within one week. I will post pictures as soon as I have them. Looking forward to get them. Price per pair is 90USD.

Maybe I'll try out the guitar street soon. There is a little street in District 3 known as the guitar street, where you get hand made guitars. Would be nice to have a guitar here and play again.

The more I get to explore the city, the more interesting it gets. Maybe it's not the most beautiful city, but definitely one of the most fascinating!

By the way, say Hello to my roommate: