Tailormade

Clothes are draped over every available surface or hung on hangers that fill storefronts. There are outfits that are too long, too short, too tight, too loose, all being customized by local tailors to fit their owners.

Marie’s Tailor Shop

You could hear the smile in Marie Tubbs’ voice as she described her job. For 31 years, Tubbs has been fixing uniforms for soldiers at 1309 S. Lawson in Airway Heights. More than just a tailor, Marie chitchats with each customer, learning the ins and outs of their lives and careers.

“Chief,” one of Marie’s customers, has been going to her since he moved to Spokane about 17 years ago. Marie has sewed on his patches from the first uniform when he was teaching survival skills at Fairchild Air Force Base until he retired. Her pride in the men was evident as she said, “Not too many become chief, but I (sew) for eight or nine of them.”

While sewing their clothes, 75-year-old Tubbs plays matchmaker. One customer asked her, “Do you know a nice girl? I need a girlfriend. I tell him, of course I know a nice girl,” she said, then asked a reporter, “Do you have a boyfriend?”

Henryk’s Tailoring

Tucked away in the upper level of the skywalk in the Washington Mutual Building, Henryk Zolwal meticulously alters pants and customizes jackets in his newly relocated shop, Henryk’s Tailoring, 601 W. Main Ave., No. 207.

At 15, Henryk began tailoring clothes in his native Poland. He was sponsored by the Catholic Church to immigrate to Spokane in 1983. Henryk chose to stay in Spokane for the past 23 years because “the people are nice, the city is just big enough – not too small, not too big. Good place to live.”

Among the racks of clothes left for him to mend or modify is a funky multicolored jacket for the movie “Home of the Brave,” being shot in Spokane. Henryk has a reputation for excellent work, but he modestly said, “I am just a hardworking man.”

Crestline Cleaners and Tailors

Steam rises from the heavy press that Duny Nguyen uses to put clean creases into the shirts and pants that come and go from Crestline Cleaners and Tailors, 4705 W. Queen Ave. Nguyen’s family bought the business five years ago. Since that time they have been taking tattered and ill-fitting clothes and making them new.

The family business had hoped to move the shop into the 21st century with the purchase of a new machine that would automate much of the pressing process. However, “the customers want us to keep the old ways; they stay with me because of the old ways,” Nguyen said.