As Eid-ul-Fitr draws nearer, shopping for the festival is gaining momentum with more and more women visiting boutiques to buy ready-made clothes instead of buying unstitched cloth in twin cities. The majority of customers, are interested in getting their hands on readymade stuff rather than tailor-made mainly to save time and avoid the hassle of repeated visits to and fro the tailor for delivering and collecting the dresses.
Today men's craze is shirts and trousers that fit best, while older folks prefer to go for simple shalwar kameez of different shades in dark and light. Normally boys prefer to wear Shalwaar Kameez, Kurta for offering Eid prayers and later half of the day till night wear jeans and shirt.
For women, it is a long frock with preferably choori dar pajama (trousers) or shalwar. All are either bought readymade or made by tailors or seamstresses in the hectic hours ahead of the Eid.
The battle between the readymade and tailor-made clothes has intensified, although tailoring workrooms, mainly for men's wears, appear losing their foothold. Many still keep their order books open for Eid delivery.
"We haven't yet fully shifted our focus to tailoring. As people's interest to readymade clothes is increasing, we are bringing in these dresses more," said an executive of a branded shop offering stitched Shalwar Kurta at Jinnah Super Market (F7).
He however said the company, the franchisee of a leading manufacturer of readymade men's wear have recorded around 20 percent rise in orders for tailoring this season.
"Days are coming when people will prefer readymade dresses to tailored ones," he said, citing the trend in Islamabad.
Another owner of a Readymade Garments said his shop received good response from the customers for both the tailored and readymade clothes. "Sales of readymade clothes at my shop have almost doubled this year," he said.
"During '90s, there were a few readymade clothes retailers in federal Capital, but the number are increasing at a rapid pace now due to change in people's lifestyle," they said, adding that eventually people will shift to readymade garment.