My Mom, a Dressmaker of Gowns, Bikinis, Charcuterie and PPE

This is a photo of my mother (left) and one of her older sisters. Taken around 1955, the image shows them  in Saigon, looking smart and plucky. I bet my mom was wearing an ao dai outfit that she sewed herself. She learned to sew early in life when she was growing up in Hai Duong in northern Vietnam. “We made our clothes, even winter coats,” she told me. Mom was born around 1935.

Over time, she mastered French sewing skills and could copy practically any article of clothing she touched. As my father planned our boat escape from Saigon in 1975, my mom secretly sewed life vests for each member of our family. My parents went looking to buy life vests but civilians in the city with whom they spoke didn’t know how to source them or what they were. One friend suggested making life vests as a potentially lucrative business opportunity since so many Viet people would be fleeing the coming onslaught of Vietnamese communists who’d been steadily advancing to take over South Vietnam.

My parents sourced styrofoam and orange nylon fabric so my mother could fabricate life vests. Mom slid flat pieces of gold between the pieces of styrofoam so we could each have currency, should we ever get lost or separated at sea. Dad hand wrote our names in large letters so we could identify one another if we were forced into the water. I remember those vests, even though I was barely six years old. 

When Saigon officials forbade unofficial boats from leaving the harbor, my parents abandoned the boat escape plan. My mother ripped apart the vests to retrieve the gold. Through a former US State Department connection of my aunt’s (details of which I’ve written about in my first cookbook, Into the Vietnamese Kitchen), we were lucky to leave by plane one week before the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975. 

Survival Sewing

Having relied on sewing skills in our attempt to flee Vietnam, my mother continued relying on them in our new life in America. While my dad hustled to find work (he eventually got an emergency English as a Second Language teaching credential and taught at a local junior high school), my mom started a sewing business, operating out of the three-bedroom apartment we rented. She advertised herself as a tailor and dressmaker. 

My dad and oldest sister Yenchi passed out business cards to local business owners and congregants of the Catholic church we attended helped spread the word too. Her clients were mostly well-heeled ladies in San Clemente, California, and the surrounding towns in Orange County.  Customers came with small alterations jobs as well as pricey gowns purchased from boutiques that they asked my mom to copy. Mom was always up to whatever gig that showed up at her door. We had a party for neighbors soon after we arrived and my mother sewed a new ao dai (above) from Indian sari silk.

As I was accumulating my vocabulary, one day I described her as a seamstress and she hissed, saying she preferred to be called a tailor or dressmaker. The terms signaled a more elevated status, she noted. If you Google dressmaker nowadays, you’ll see a designer-y sensibility, one that denotes custom, fashionable work. 

Piecework Bikinis

Like many refugees, we struggled financially. But it was okay because we were an intact family and realized that as part of our great fortune. Viet refugees who excelled at sewing eventually did piecework — sewing garments and being paid for each one. The sewing set ups were often in people’s homes with every family member taking part in an assembly line fashion. 

My family sewed bikinis for a local shop. We regularly received delivery of stacks of pre-cut fabric. There were large rolls of narrow elastic and large spools of thread. My mother bought industrial sewing machines that did overlock stitches to reinforce edges and straight stitches to zip through multiple layers of fabric. 

After dinner which my mom cooked from scratch nightly, the seven of us headed into Mom’s garage sewing shop (by then we’d bought a house) and made bikini tops and bottoms. As the youngest, I was often in charge of low-risk tasks like snipping threads with thread snippers (special short scissors designed to cut threads fast). I’ve never worn a bikini but I’ve had a hand in making thousands of them. 

Sewing Up food

At the holidays when we roasted stuffed chicken or goose, Mom would beautifully stitch up the cavity of the birds in red thread. She did it in a way that she could easily remove the thread with a quick pull. She chose red thread because it was cheery and easy to spot after cooking. The photo below is from one of our Thanksgivings.

There was a stretch of time when Mom and Dad wanted to make a particular Chinese-Viet charcuterie -- a garlicky mixture of pork encased in a sleeve of chewy, gelatinous pork skin. To  make the cold cut, they sourced pieces of pork skin from local supermarkets. The skin from a pork shoulder picnic arm roast was ideal. 

Mom then hand sewed the skin, stuffed it so it looked like an arm, then cooked it. My sister Tasha, then a law school student at Harvard, adored that garlicky charcuterie and hand carried it on flights from California to Boston. 

As a child, I admired my mom’s sewing abilities in her workshop and kitchen. But as an adult and professional home cook, I am in awe. My mom employed large sewing needles and thread, sometimes dangerous looking carpet needles, to sew up food. Raw animal skin is hard to control. 

Project Face Masks

My parents are in their late 80s so my siblings and voluntarily avoid visiting them these days, unless it’s crucial. We communicate by email and phone and sometimes text. 

I felt stupid weeks ago when facing the shortage of face masks, I wished my mom would make them for me and my husband. She’d taught me how to sew, but personal protective equipment seemed out of my league of simple stitching jobs. She’d made a few for the family and offered to send some. The post office mail was slow at the time. Feeling impatient and panicky, I crafted four face masks using a sewing machine my mother had gifted me years ago. 

The repetitive work turned out to be fun but also poignant. It reminded me of the lifevests my mother made in Saigon. It also reminded me of when my family made bikinis. (In retrospect, our family enterprise wasn’t legit because it employed child labor. But what the heck, we were operating as a unit trying to get by.) I improved with each mask, making them more efficiently, adding my own flair. 

After Mom’s masks finally arrived, we regrouped via phone. She complimented me on the ones I made, asking me where I’d gotten the handsome fabric (Daiso). She shared her insights -- bias tape wasn’t effective like some patterns say. “I’ve made a few more, in different styles, and given them to people, like your difficult aunt. She’s my only surviving sister so I want to be generous,” she said, acknowledging that blood relatives matter in dire situations, no matter how strained relationships have been. Circle your wagons is what she and Dad do. 

Then Mom revealed her face mask making zeal -- she’d sewn 168 masks! My brother, Dan, took the above photo of Mom and her collection. Wow. What did she do with them? Gift them to people, mostly family members, she said. 

She offered to send me a few more, to be generous. A PPE care package soon showed up with a simply note, "Here are 18 masks." My mom does not sign anything with "Love" as that's not part of her culture or generation. But she cares.

In fact, she demonstrated her caring by sending eighteen (18!) masks made from a wild collection of fabric, including familiar batik and pieces of cloth that she’d also used for shirts and blouses sewn for my dad and her. I imagine that they are going around town wearing smart outfits with matching face masks. Mom also sent along notions in case I wanted to tweak the masks for fit or to make my own. 

At age 85, my mother keeps on sewing. She officially retired a few years ago, but she’s definitely not tired. Bless her enduring spirit. 

Please share stories of your remarkable mom!

Happy Mother's Day to All Moms!

Related posts on my mom

• Pho Lessons from my Mom
• Vietnamese Rice Pyramid Dumplings Recipe (including a how-to video with Mom)
• What Happens when Mom Reads my Blog
• My Mom's Book of Domesticity: Recipes and and Stories from Vietnam
• My Mother's Kitchen Quirks (including storing dishes in the dishwasher)