Abaya Shopping

Vanessa and I decided to venture out again and try to upgrade our abayas. We had some trouble finding the Mustafa style dollar store shop the weekend before but eventually got and it was supposed to be across the street and two doors down. We found it just where it was supposed to be and started browsing the shop.

Obviously everything is all black, long sleeves, to the floor so really you are looking only at fabric choice, embroidery, zippers vs snaps and you can have them put in pockets. I was lucky to be short. There was a wide selection of size 54 but Vanessa is tall and needs a 58. I think we found two in the whole shop. Luckily the guy can make anything you want so we both ordered new ones made with pretty stitching down the front and at the sleeves. They should be ready in two weeks.

The listed price was 280 SAR for the one on the rack but when he rang us up with all the accessories and ad ons we had made the bill was 170 SAR. Lesson gleaned? This is a negotiating country! I didn't realize an abaya shop would do that. Next time I'll ask at other shops too. 

So how do you get a custom order? You have to give the guy your measurements. And how does a male shop owner get a woman's measurements in Saudi Arabia? I didn't know either but he sure as heck doesn't take them himself! Lucky for us while we were there four of our neighbors who are veteran Saudi dwellers happened into the same shop as us and showed us the ropes. One fun gal is Muslim and wears the full cover including hair cover all the time even when she's in our compound. She was a blessing for sure. She took everyone's measurements for us and told the guy what we wanted. He would try to add length or shorten sleeves as he saw fit for and she'd ask us how we actually wanted it to fit and then tell him to make it how we wanted. Things I hadn't even thought of. My abaya is wide and has four to five extra inches of fabric on either side of my body. I hadn't even noticed. He was going to take off three inches. I was so glad we ran into the friends and she was able to help us. I'm hopeful when we show up next week we will get what we thought we were getting.

After we had that all squared away then I asked where I could get a full body length zipper to put in my current abaya because it won't stay closed with the three buttons it has. It flaps open all the way to my waist which is a major problem. If I wear even capris then my legs show when the wind blows the abaya around and it makes me nervous to climb in and out of a car.

We walked down the road and went into a shop or two but they only had fancy fabric. They told us where to go and we walked the other direction and my girlfriend got her butt cheek grabbed as we passed a man. Pervert. Proof the abaya doesn't exactly solve the issue. In any case they had loads of super long zippers but not a single one in black. Tons of white ones though. The shop owner was real nice though and helped me find more buttons to match the ones I already have and some cord that isn't black to match but would coordinate with the deep red so I can create button hole loops.

Another successful adventure complete.