– Decades of tailoring, a Bholaisingh family tradition
Although it is a trade that started centuries ago, the men of the Bholaisingh family adopted it as their own in the past five decades, and have even sought to revolutionise how it is done. The trade in question is that of tailoring.
I am sure at some point you would have required such a service and perhaps one of the most well known tailoring outlets in the city is that of the Hermon and Son’s Tailoring and Alteration establishment.
Situated at 56 Lombard Street, Georgetown, Hermon and Son’s is known to offer tailoring services ranging from the simple alteration of a garment to the full-fledged construction of a pants or skirt suit or even a dress. Customers are usually satisfied with the always skillfully completed end product.
Although the business has been in existence since 1960, founded by Harold Bholaisingh, who hailed from Berbice, today it is controlled by the capable hands of his grandson, Giovanni Lorenzo Bholaisingh, popularly known as Richard. Richard is in fact viewed by some as the tailor with the ‘magic touch’, who, from a very tender age, was allowed to dabble in the tailoring arena as part of his daily chores.
Taking over the thriving business of Hermon and Son’s was certainly not an overnight achievement.
In fact, the tailoring business was first passed on from grandfather (Harold Bholaisingh) to his son, (Hermon Bholaisingh) a few decades ago who was in fact the one that made the business exceptionally popular. However, the aging father would soon recognise that he was ready for retirement when his son, Richard, revealed unprecedented tailoring skills enough to retain and sustain an ever growing clientele base.
The 40-year-old Richard, during an interview with Guyana Inc., recently revealed how he too adopted a love for a trade which was, long before his entry into the world, synonymous with the Bholaisingh name. He recalled being thrust into the basic aspects of tailoring from the time he was a First Former at the Sussex Street, Georgetown, Caramel High School. He remembers vividly returning home from school and assisting his mother to hem, iron and sew buttons unto garments his father had earlier completed.
“I didn’t particularly like doing it,” recounted Richard, who nevertheless did his designated chores as best as his little hands would allow.
He recalled how he would eventually graduate from the simple tasks to learning how to cut and even sew pants while he was still attending school. He learned how to master the pedal machine in his father’s tailoring shop and his many practice sessions translated to him heading out to school with a new pair of school pants each week.
“I started taking pieces of cloth from my father’s shop and I would cut and sew them together, but I wasn’t really good at the measurement yet, so what you would find was that some of my pants crotch would be long, some would be short, some of the legs would be fat and some would be fine, but I was learning and I was really enjoying it too,” confided Richard.
So intent was he on learning the trade that his academic studies were the least of his concern at the time. Recognising that his son was more versed in tailoring than academics, Hermon Bholaisingh made the decision to remove his son from school and gave him a place at his shop. Working for his father saw Richard raking in a handsome allowance and, according to him, by the time he was 17 years of age, he was a millionaire.
One year later he was a home owner, having purchased a house at Agricola, Greater Georgetown, with his own earned money. This move, according to Richard, was in preparation for a family. “As a young man I started thinking about having a wife and children and I wanted to be able to marry a wife and take her into my own home,” he disclosed, as he reminisced on his younger days.
“I realised that there is so much you can do in tailoring and so much tailoring can do for you; you can buy a home but you have to dedicate yourself to see the results that you want,” asserted Richard.
But he wasn’t quite ready for a family as yet. In fact, he felt the need to branch off on his own. However, he had a desire to do more than just the traditionally tailoring he had come to learn in his father’s shop.
He got some additional training from another local tailor who had been in the business for years, but it was while on holiday in the United States and then in China that he would learn some of his most outstanding techniques. Richard would eventually open his own shop, first at Regent and Albert Streets in Georgetown before he moved it to Kitty at another house that he was able to purchase. There he called his business place “Son of Hermon and Son’s.”
But, according to him, while he was able to survive on the forthcoming income, business simply wasn’t great in that section of the country.
Moreover, he made a proposal to his father that he simply couldn’t refuse. You see, Richard recognised that his father was getting on in age and would soon have to pass on the mantle to one of his sons if it were to survive. And it was exactly this that Hermon Bholaisingh did – he entered immediate retirement. The older Bholaisingh today has more time for himself and also has ample energy to perform his Commissioner of Oaths duties.
Pass by the establishment any day of the week and you will see a well-dressed older gentleman sitting exquisitely in a chair outside. He has the face of a proud father who has not regretted passing on the baton to his son. In fact, Hermon Bholaisingh intimated to Guyana Inc. that his son has been able to do things with the tailoring shop that he hadn’t even envisioned was possible.
Aside from offering complete wedding and funeral packages, including clothing and other needs, Richard, together with his wife Pretty, have been able to convert the Lombard Street establishment into a variety store that offers just about everything a householder could need.
“We can sew your wedding dresses or suits, we can sew the funeral clothes, even make your wreaths or whatever clothes you want, and we can give you many things you need for your home too,” said Richard as he effortless completed one of his clients’ garments. His father too is certainly not left out of the equation, as according to him, “Daddy is certified to perform marriages, so we don’t only give you the clothes you need…if you want to get married in the gardens daddy can do that for you.”
The future of the business, Richard envisions, will include the provision of a wedding hall complete with all of the necessities, and he is hopeful that one of his three sons, the four-month along addition to his family, will take up the mantle to continue the prestigious Bholiasingh’s tailoring name.
