Princess Fashion Boutique

Princess Fashion Boutique is located right behind the Kalamandir in Marthahalli. It’s a bit of a hidden spot, but most locals find us eventually. The shop is usually a mess of colorful fabrics, loose threads, and half-finished dresses draped over the chairs. We have a couple of sewing machines that are almost always humming in the background, making it hard to hear the radio sometimes. It’s a small space, so when we have more than three customers inside, it starts to feel very crowded. We spend a lot of our time pinning lace or debating which shade of blue matches a particular border. It’s not like those big department stores where everything is on a rack; here, we are usually working on something specific. The floor is always covered in scraps of cloth, no matter how many times we sweep it. We stay late most nights, especially during the wedding season, when the piles of work seem to grow faster than we can sew. The lighting isn't great, so we rely on the big window at the front during the day. Marthahalli bridge traffic is a nightmare, so we usually wait a bit after closing before heading home. It is just a few of us here, and we mostly just focus on getting the measurements right so the clothes fit like they are supposed to. It’s a lot of manual work and squinting at needles.