Ecliff’s passion for fashion on time

If YOU want to go to court and look innocent, if you want to dress to intimidate, or if you want to light up a room, tailor Ecliff Elie is perhaps your dress code advisor and fashionista. What started out as a one-man operation in a mini room, amid barber stalls and hair salons, located on Woodford Street in Arima, has turned into somewhat of a production house with Ecliff’s loyal team of four workers. “The business has outgrown this place,” said 29-year-old Ecliff, as he sat at his cutting board, brown-paper pants patterns hung behind him and the sound of heavy-duty sewing machines in the background.
           
As he said those words, in less than five minutes, Ecliff was through in cutting the components — collar, yolk, sleeve, back and front — of a blouse, or baby shirt as he called it. No heavy-duty scissors like the one he has parked up on the shelf for a while, which could cut six linen pants at once — could cut that fast! “I recently got this tool, they call it a mini-electric tailoring shears or electric cutter,” he said. The hand-held device is neat, sharp and effective. Ecliff, as some of his clients like soca artistes Billy D Kid, Shurwayne Winchester and Young Marcelle would confess, is a tailor who keeps his word. “It’s a misconception that people have that tailors don’t deliver on time, but for me, customer is king.” He has sewn and delivered, on time, stage wear for Shurwayne Winchester, the Road March 2004 title holder, and in recent times, for UNC Senator Jennifer Jones-Kernahan.

“She wanted something for a function with Nelson Mandela and in a day she got it... They wanted to honour Shurwayne in Tobago after he won the Road March and he called me up. He has a lot of confidence in me, and he has been with me for five years.” Ecliff even text-messages his clients and re-schedules, should he fail to meet a deadline. He also supplies companies such as Prestige Holdings, Tricon and the Danilo Enterprises chain of cellular phone stores with work uniforms. “Ecliffelie Designs” specialises in ladies career suits, gents tailored suits and elegant dresses. Six years in the business — but all of this didn’t happen overnight. It was because of his determined spirit to survive in a domain saturated with tailors and seamstresses, like the time when he approached the principal of Holy Cross College to offer his services of tailor-made pants to registering students. The principal accepted.

“And I tell the students why they should have their pants tailor-made, because they would be the same ones, after buying at the stores, having to bring them for me to adjust,” said Ecliff. He checked his clientele listing. To date, he has over 1,000 customers including those in the USA, Canada and England. Maintaining customers, he said, isn’t easy with the advent of local clothing stores which mass produce.

“I am able to survive by winning the confidence in people that tailor-made is better than the store because it (clothing) is tailored to suit you. I wouldn’t force you to buy something that wouldn’t look good on you... People have a misconception, too, that tailored clothes are cheap so they say ‘Best ah buy cloth and make it’ but it would cost more at the tailor because it is customised. Anything customised costs more.” Ecliff built a clientele from his school days. A student in tailoring at QChaguanas Senior Comprehensive under the tutorship of Malcolm Matthews, Ecliff tested his skill on his classmates. “I remember looking through the list of subjects to choose and I didn’t want to do any accounts or typing so I chose air-conditioning and tailoring.” He continued: “I grew up with five sisters and dem girls always dressing and dressing and they always asked me for confirmation on how they look.”

Ecliff, the last of 15 children with ten sisters, grew up in Chin Chin Road, Cunupia. His mother, Priscilla Elie, was a seamstress and housewife up until the death of his father, Victor Campbell, when Ecliff was only five. “My mother took on a job to help me in school... I couldn’t buy material for practical so I would go to friends in the neighbourhood and ask them to buy like a two yards of cloth for me and whatever I made I would give them. “I was so excited when I started sewing. I remember the first time I made a back pocket and drafted a pants — I would ask my sisters over and over ‘this looking good?’” Elie was also excited when he began work with Ted Bruce of The Caribbean Bunch, a puppet theatre production with miniature and life-size characters. His big break came when a tailor at Mt Pleasant, Arima, allowed him free use of a spare sewing machine at his tailoring shop. He saved up enough money to buy his first sewing machine which cost $4,000 and reeled in clients from all over Arima. “It’s all about the customer,” he said, “and not the money. You don’t cut down a whole tree to get the mango at the top when you’d have the tree to give you fruit for years.”

He took a course in business management at the Business Development Company (BDC), formerly Small Business and Development Company (SBDC) and said that “it would make me feel proud” if his workers — secretary Gillian Barrow, and production staff Denise Lewis, Kelly Calderon and Ginel Cayonne, who have been with the shop for five years — not side with the competition, but open up their own business one day. “I have accepted Jesus and I am getting my act together. That means that I have stopped taking people for granted. Jesus promised to take my burdens away and I think that once you’re obedient, everything becomes easy... I’m thankful to my family, Lorren James (girlfriend), daughters Makeba and Makada, and friends Thora Ramdass, Christopher Gadsby, Andre Marshall and Theopholous Furlonge, who have helped me along the way.”