Busanjin Fabric Market

I think I mentioned in a couple of my blogs about my passion for sewing. I learned sewing my own dress back in 2011. And from then till moving here in Korea, I used to design and make my own dress. I think the main reason I wanted to learn sewing is that I was too impatient to wait for my tailor to finish the work lol.  But I never really wanted to take sewing as a profession, I never wanted to be a professional designer. All I ever wanted was to be not dependent on someone else for designing or tailoring my dress. My mother knew sewing, she taught me everything by herself. I even made some dresses for my sisters and my only niece. Sadly, after coming here, I couldn’t do much sewing. I didn’t own one, cause we used to live in a studio apartment, and we didn’t want to make our house too messy as we already had too much stuff.

Recently we shifted to a bigger house, so I decided to buy one sewing machine finally. At first, I was thinking about buying from G Market. But thanks to my amazing husband who did a research about where to buy a sewing machine in Busan and found out that on the opposite side of Busanjin Fabric Market, there are some shops that sell second-hand sewing machines at a cheaper rate. So, last Saturday, we went there. Although it says Busanjin Fabric Market, you need to get off at Beomil station in line 1, which is two stops before the actual Busanjin station. The market is quite easy to find, keep walking straight from exit 1, and you will find it soon. Beside the market you will find various street shops, selling sewing stuff like various types of threads, tailor shops, and street food shop as well. Most of the tailor shops were for suit tailoring. Inside the market, there are varieties of fabrics and clothes available. From pillow, curtain, bedsheet, clothes and yes for gorgeous hanbok, you will find the fabric you need here. However, I feel like it’s a bit expensive here. One of my friends later told me you need to bargain here, but that’s quite difficult for us foreigners. My friend suggested that taking a local Korean helps with bargaining. However, later I searched fabrics in G market, and I found some really good deal there.

At first, we couldn’t find the sewing machine shops, then a kind ahjussi told us that the shops are on the opposite side of the market. There’s a foot-overbridge with the market that connects the two sides of the road, so you don’t have to go all the way down and actually cross the road to go over there. We checked 4 or 5 shops and most of them were asking for 200,000-300,000 KW. Some of these machines were quite old, so were a bit dirty, some of them were pretty small. Finally, we found one for 130,000 KW. The ajumma and ahjussi were actually asking for 150,000 KW, but my husband requested to give some discounts telling we both are students and they were kind enough to offer 20,000 KW less. Back in Bangladesh, I used to have a manual sewing machine, so I was a bit confused about the functions of an electric machine. The ajumma made sure to teach me everything before we leave. So far, I used it two times to do some alterations, and I really feel comfortable using the machine. For students like us, it’s really difficult to buy new things at expensive rates, so I think you can check this place if you are looking for a sewing machine.

I made a small vlog about the whole experience, just a one minute video showing the market and the sewing machine shops:

As I mentioned, I found fabrics at a cheaper rate in G Market, so I ordered some from there. Soon I am going to design a new dress and make it with my sewing machine from scratch! Hopefully, in my next blog, I will be sharing my experiences of making a full dress with my newly owned sewing machine. Wish me luck, guys!

Have a nice weekend, people!
-Munira Chowdhury, 09/03/2019

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via Busanjin Fabric Market

Ayesha Munira Chowdhury

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