Custom Service for Every Customer
Admit it. It’s
time to buy a new wool hat.
You’ve been putting it off, because your old one
just feels so
good on your head. It
fits so well that it’s almost a part of your head by now.
Perhaps you don’t
wear a hat but a bonnet instead, and what’s going on under your bonnet right
now are many musings about where you can find fifteen burgundy shirts—in ten
different sizes to fit all those young men in the wedding, the six year-old-old
to the twenty-two-year-old. And they will all need black vests, again, in ten
different sizes. Mixed with those musings is the question you’re asking
yourself every morning: When you will ever find time to sew that new work coat
your husband needs?
Then there’s
the new baby next door, and a soft, fluffy blanket or a sleeper would be just
the right gift to take along on a visit.
All very
good reasons to visit, write, or call Charm Fabrics & Clothing.
Steve and
Susan Yoder’s store in Charm, Ohio, will be able to help with your predicament.
The necessary
new hat, for example. Not only does the store have multiple sizes of brims and
crown heights, but they’ll also steam your new wool hat to fit the shape of
your head. Wear it for one half hour after steaming, and it will be “made” just
for you.
As a matter
of fact, even if you purchased a new wool hat elsewhere and now find that it
doesn’t fit “quite right,” the Yoders will be happy to put their hat steamer to
use and shape that hat for you.
Their specialty—and the service they most enjoy
providing
—is custom fit clothing. While their store does carry many fabrics,
baby items, books, toys, gift items, sweaters, and sweatshirts, providing clothing
to fit each customer’s specifications makes up a big portion of this store’s endeavor
to serve its customers.
The business
originated long before there was a physical building housing a retail store.
Susan did some sewing of church coats and vests for boys, but when she began
making pants patterns designed to distinctively fit a customer, she found her
business growing rapidly.
Deciding to create
a full-fledged business offering custom clothing,
“was quite a venture for us,”
says Susan. Their store opened in the lower level of Charm Marketplace (formerly
the Charm General Store) on January 8, 2010, and in the past five years, the request
for their custom work has outgrown the fabric business.
Susan still
makes pants patterns. She also had many requests for dress patterns. Attending
the Sewing & Quilt Expo at the I-X Center in Cleveland, she sat in on
several sewing classes, but there wasn’t much they could teach her about Amish
dresses. So, doing her own research, she found
“fitting patterns” created by
companies like McCall’s and Simplicity. These are basic patterns that can be
altered in many different ways to produce the exact dress style and size a
woman needs. From the patterns, Susan also made “fitting dresses,” which the
store uses to fit a woman who is ordering a garment made to her specifications.
A custom fit
is available for every member of the family. Vests, hats, capes, dresses,
pants, coats—all can be ordered custom made, or, if a person finds, say, a ready-made
coat on the rack that is
almost right
but just a little too long or too wide in the shoulders, Charm Fabrics &
Clothing will make the alterations.
The
attention to each individual’s size and fit makes this store a good partner in wedding
planning. Need fifteen maroon, button-down, long-sleeved shirts, all in different
sizes? You won’t find those at Kohl’s or Penney’s. The children’s sizes are
especially hard to find. But you can order them from Charm Fabrics and
Clothing. They stock about 30 colors of these quality shirts, in almost every
size. “We send them everywhere,” says Susan.
Another
wedding service that many families are finding helpful is rental of the black vests.
Again, fifteen maroon-shirted young men will need fifteen vests. And we all
know how fast young men grow—they may never wear that expensive vest again. The
practical answer? Rent the vests for one day. Susan will have them laundered
and pressed, all ready for the wedding day. When the wedding is over, return
the vests, and Charm Fabrics & Clothing will do the laundering and pressing
to have them ready for the next rental.
With years of
experience at custom fitting clothes, Steve and Susan are able to provide this
service even to those who do not walk through their doors. Supplying basic
information like sizes, measurements, and style details, a long-distance
customer can benefit from this store’s expertise and have clothing made or
shipped to them without even visiting Charm.
Browsing
through the store’s new catalog gives some idea of the range of merchandise and
services they offer. Besides custom clothing, the shelves and racks hold factory-made
shirts, sweaters, and sweatshirts. In addition to the men’s wool hats, there
are straw hats and seagrass hats. The ladies will find coverings and over a
dozen different sizes of capes, in numerous styles. Girls’ dresses and boys’
pants, shirts, and coats hang in neat rows. Customers can browse through almost
100 men’s coats and at least 70 women’s coats, ready-made and ready to wear.
The clothing
is all made in the U.S., almost all of it in Ohio,
and 75% at local sewing
machines
. One woman in the area has sewed as many as 500 shirts in one year.
Susan says she is “a walking sewing machine, and pours out these gorgeous shirts.”
Hats and coats are made locally—they have designed a duck cloth coat very similar
to a name-brand work coat but without the grommets and zippers and pockets.
And don’t
forget, this is also a place to shop for fabric, patterns, notions, shawls,
bonnets, baby items, books, toys, and basics like socks, underwear, and gloves.
All can be
found at Charm Fabrics and Clothing, 4456 State Route 557 in Charm, Ohio. Contact
the store by mail at P.O. Box 247, Charm, Ohio, 44617; by fax at 330.893.0428;
or by telephone at 330.893.4758. Requests for a catalog can be made in any of
these three ways or when visiting the store.
Steve and
Susan aim to please their customers with clothes made to exact specifications
and with services that assist in sewing for the family or planning wedding clothes.
Whenever they can help overcome a clothing challenge, they will do their best.
“That’s what
makes us who we are—our customer service,” says Susan.