One of few left Orangefield tailor says craft is dying a slow death

As he sits on his verandah in Orangefield, St Catherine, carefully stitching each suit with the same precision that has defined his career for decades, veteran tailor Osmond Stephens fears he may be witnessing the slow decline of a trade once in high demand.

“We need tailors ... and nobody’s learning it. Nobody is doing the tailoring,” said Stephens, threading a needle as he insisted his eyesight remains sharp after all these years. At 78, he has spent more than six decades in the profession.

“My old lady use to do dressmaking and I am the one that use to hang out with her until about age 13 I went to Kingston and start the work.”

Stephens told THE WEEKEND STAR that his early years in Kingston had both highs and lows.

“Mi do everything. I found myself in Luke Lane a sell pants length and at one point I was learning the trade and mi and my trade master kick off. So mi just say alright and try go Coronation Market, first to sell some seasoning from a carton box until I hustled a pants length money and then start off selling in Luke Lane,” he recalled.

He said Luke Lane, at the time, was the place to be if you wanted to guarantee sales of pants lengths. Stephens also took on several hustles over the years, from selling fish on the beach to cutting sugarcane at Innswood Sugar Estate, until he was displaced by Hurricane Gilbert in 1988.

“Gilbert mashed up the building I was on. And from there now, I said, ‘Boy, I have this little piece of land, you know, I’m going to jack up a one room on it’. And I started out with that one room until here I am,” Stephens said, gesturing toward his modern concrete home.

Although tailoring is now something he mostly does when customers come by, Stephens vividly recalls when the trade was thriving.

“Christmas, Easter, back to school was good, very good. Even Independence and any public holiday use to good but you don’t see anything like that again.”

He remembered how orders would pile up, and deadlines were often missed.

“At times when I was in Kingston, I used to hide from customers, but after I left Kingston I don’t bother with those things. But I always do my best because when I do a job and go out and see it, it’s always nicer than the money I collected.”

Picking up a two-piece olive-green suit he had completed just a week earlier, Stephens drifted into memories of earlier fashion trends.

“We use to carry like some bell foot pants and them things deh, and back then, I had more flare. I wore straight pants and then the bell foot came in the early 70s,” he said, before adding his blunt view on modern styles.

“See them pass with some pants under here so, mi hate it. It sick me stomach,” he said firmly.

As he continued inspecting the suit, Stephens told THE WEEKEND STAR that a garment like it now costs about $25,000 and can be completed in three days, though these days the process often takes longer.