Horrible clothing shop in District 2, Tiao Dien,

I went to a clothing shop called Cocoon on Xuan Thuy Q2. The French designer there used to be an acquaintance of my good French friend. One day he told me he is opening a clothing shop in district 2 with a Vietnamese girl, and they also design clothes for clients. At that time, I was interested in making a Chinese traditional qipao, and didn't know any good tailor here that can do it. I decided try this shop out, and help a new store grow. I am sure the French designer has never seen a qipao in his entire life. He went online and found some pictures, chose one and created a drawing. After designing it, he asked the girl, the Vietnamese shop owner, to come out and measure my size. The following is a conversation between those two while the girl is measuring me, and I was completely shocked by the audacity and unprofessionalism displayed here:

French: I know her size.




Girl: inside also?





French: No , We never slept together......




I was shocked and angry, and this was the first time in my life I experienced someone who does business like this. I didn't say anything to the girl for fear that she would mess up the qipao. After returning home I texted the French designer and complained about the attitude of his partner. His reply was simply that this is her character, and she is just jealous of you because she feels that we are connected. "Do you feel we are connected?" – --That connection will never happen in my life! No idea what's inside his brain.




The price for making the dress was 800.000 excluding the cost of the fabric. I paid 400.000 as a deposit, and purchased my own fabric on the fabric street. They told me the fabric I bought looked old, and they could buy better fabric for me. The total price came to 1.150.000, including the fabric. I was not very happy with the fabric here in Vietnam. There are many good fabrics for aodai, but difficult to find the proper one for qipao. I allowed them to purchase fabric for me, and expected a nice qipao! After almost 1 month waiting, the French designer told me the clothing was completed, and I went to to the shop to try it on. What they showed me was a horrible disappointment! The qipao was ugly, and furthermore it didn't even fit well. The Vietnamese girl must have been so busy being jealous that she got the measurements wrong. I asked her to cut it a bit, and see if it will be ok later. One more week later, she sent a rude text, “Are you coming to pick up your clothes or not?” At this point, I didn't want to talk to this woman anymore. I dislike fighting, and did not want to lower myself to her level.

I looked around my apartment for the deposit receipt, but couldn't find it so I texted the French designer to verify the price. After a while, he responded, “It's 1.600.000vnd, and because we make you wait for long time, she will give you 200.000 discount, so it's 1.400.000 very cheap!” What a nasty business. Liar. I remembered clearly they said 1.15 million including fabric. I eventually located the deposit receipt, and it was written exactly as I remember it. I texted him back, and said, “Forget about it. I won't take the clothes. The workmanship is poor, you want to cheat me and overcharge, and the owner is so rude.” The next day the girl sent me a text, ”Poor you! You dress worse than a hooker! Easy to f**k. Haha. Jealous girl!” She clearly doesn't know the meaning of "jealous"......







Before this text message, I planned to let it go. I considered my loss of the 400,000 deposit as a mistake on my part for doing business there, but this message hit a nerve and really made me angry. I went to the shop again, and asked for the deposit back. The Vietnamese girl was hiding in the back room, and the French guy was out front. He said he did his job, and all the talk is you girls just blabla. I showed him the text messages, and he said, “It's your own fault, you dress too sexy......” Even more ridiculous was that he had the audacity to ask me to pay the 1.2 million for the clothes. He said, “Why did you ask her to cut it? If you didn't ask, then we could have sold it to someone else, but now it only fits you. I think you should buy it.” I inspected the qipao, and found there were two long lines of tiny holes on the fabric. His response to this was, “It was already on the fabric before we made it. This is Vietnam, what do you expect?”




So in conclusion, if you visit the shop named COCOON on Xuan Thuy district 2, you've been warned. The owner is a young girl, and she doesn't know a thing about business. She is very rude and dishonest. She works with a Frenchman as she is expecting a white face can bring in more money. The sad thing is, when you think of a foreign expat can do a better professonal job than the locals, sometimes it's just not true, rather you just paid more for the white face.