The Pentium Era - South to North

After those jeans were sampled, Zhang Chen's business went from bad to worse. Zhang Chen himself understood the reason. Although there were people buying jeans in the summer, there were not many after all. It turned out that their stall was like a retail store with a wide range of products. , Zhang Chen’s samples are excellent, and coupled with the advertisements outside, their store is very beautiful and eye-catching from a distance.

Now, the cardboard boxes piled up to the ceiling have blocked all the lights in the stall. The street lights in the passage shine on the rows of pants that are almost next to the rolling shutters. The entire stall not only looks airtight , it was still dark, and looking from a distance, I thought the stall didn’t open at all.

Zhang Chen himself felt that it was too depressing in his stall. Not to mention the customers, he felt that his stall was very similar to the store in Dongxin Market that was filled with elastic cotton. In the summer, just looking at it made people feel hot. .

In addition, in order to reduce losses as much as possible, their pants were not sold cheaply. Instead of the planned thirty-fourty-one pairs, they sold sixty-seven and seventy-one pairs. In this way, if they can More than 300 pairs of trousers were sold out, and the loss was only a few thousand yuan, which is not too much.

But at this price, many people left as soon as they asked, not even willing to bargain. Those old customers who used to come often came here twice and looked at their stalls. Now that they are like this, they have no desire to come again.

Zhang Chen and Xiao Zhao were secretly worried as they looked at each other, but there was nothing they could do about it. Zhang Chen often wanted to throw these boxes into the trash can one by one, but he always just thought about it, even though they were It's garbage, but after all, it's garbage that I spent a lot of money to buy, so I still can't bear to throw it away.

Although sometimes Zhang Chen is confused, he feels that his calculations are wrong. In the past, he would make some money every day, but now he often doesn't make a penny. If there is no money, isn't he losing money every day, stall fees and other things? The cost is the same whether you have a business or not, not counting the money you can earn every day?

Although the money cannot be calculated, and there is no fixed amount, there is always some, no less than nothing now. As time goes by, this pile of things is actually here. Not only does it not produce any benefits, but it also causes me to continue to bleed every day. , there is no end in sight, do we have to keep piling up like this?

Zhang Chen wanted to tell Xiao Zhao to throw them all away, but he knew that if he said that, Xiao Zhao would definitely cry and become anxious. This is like a person who is reluctant to throw away the leftovers and eats them every day. It was leftover rice, but he felt that it must not be poured out if it was rice, let alone pairs of jeans, even though they were in European sizes.

Zhang Chen also made up his mind again and again, telling himself, no, this won't work. He must tell Xiao Zhao about this tomorrow. But when tomorrow came, he saw Xiao Zhao's worried eyes and thought, forget it, let's wait for her. Let's talk when you feel better.

In this way, August dragged on day by day.

Zhang Chen got angry looking at the pile of cartons in the store. When he got home, he got angry again at the Singer sewing machine. Damn it, it cost more than two hundred and it was of no use.

With nothing to do, Zhang Chen really started thinking about making diapers. Since he already had a sewing machine, he picked up a book on clothing cutting. It seemed that Zhang Chen bought these books because he was curious and wanted to know how a piece of cloth was made. Turning it into a piece of clothing, he had never thought about becoming a tailor. He always felt that tailoring was something only women or effeminate men could do.

Zhang Chen read general cutting books and learned the so-called flat cutting, and also learned the so-called draping, which was very new at the time. He knew that most of the clothes at Milan and Paris Fashion Week were made through draping. , which has high artistic and technical requirements for designers, so it is called "soft sculpture".

By September, the market returned to normal. The stall owners who had been closed for several days, including Feng Zhen, were shocked when they first saw Zhang Chen and his stall. They didn't know what they were doing. Look again. A Yong's stall looked the same. Zhang Chen and A Yong looked like two defeated roosters after they opened the door, looking downcast.

Zhang Chen and his stall no longer even had the dazzling advertisement.

Fengzhen found Ayong first and tentatively understood the reason. She remained calm on the surface, but she was already happy in her heart. Haha, you guys are also here today. Let’s see what else you have to say. Although Zhang Chen and Xiao Zhao, They were never arrogant when business was good, but Fengzhen always felt that they were arrogant, even if Xiao Zhao sometimes talked to her in a flattering way.

That's also an air of dignity. Who wants you to please?

At around nine o'clock, Xiao Zhao came. The only space left in the stall was the small space in front of the table. Both of them felt cramped when sitting there. Before the market returned to normal, they could move chairs and stools to the passage to sit and recover. Normally, you are not allowed to sit outside.

Zhang Chen gave up his seat to Xiao Zhao. He stood in the passage for a while, then walked to A Yong's stall to take a look. When A Yong saw him, he still smiled bitterly and shook his head as usual.

Although all the stalls in the market were open, there were still no customers. Most of the people wandering around in the aisles were people from the market.

Zhang Chen felt that instead of standing here and there in boredom, he might as well go out for a walk. He hadn't gone out for a long time, and he didn't know what the outside world was like now.

After Zhang Chen left, Xiao Zhao sat alone in the stall.

Fengzhen looked at Xiao Zhao opposite, squeezed among the cartons, wiping sweat constantly. When Fengzhen looked at Xiao Zhao, Xiao Zhao raised his head and saw her. Fengzhen smiled at Xiao Zhao, and Xiao Zhao was stunned. For a moment.

"How come there are so many goods?" Feng Zhen asked knowingly.

Xiao Zhao smiled bitterly and shook his head: "I was greedy for cheap, and I suffered a big loss."

"It's too boring where you are. Come sit here with me."

Fengzhen greeted Xiao Zhao. Xiao Zhao thought about it, stood up and walked over. Fengzhen offered her chair to Xiao Zhao. Xiao Zhao quickly declined. Fengzhen said: "It's a chair. What's so polite about it? You It’s just a big belly, I can’t sit on the stool.”

Xiao Zhao couldn't resist, she said: "I'll go get my chair."

"I'll go, I'll go, you sit here." Fengzhen ran to the opposite side and brought over the steel folding chairs from Zhang Chen's stall.

Ayong passed by them, and Fengzhen shouted: "Where are you going? You don't look at the stalls, but you go to play again?"

A Yong said without looking back: "I'm sorry, let's go for a walk and look for any Yankees who have packed up."

Zhang Chen walked around Sijiqing, but it was still the same. Every market was empty and no one had any new products.

He then went to the fabric market and stopped in front of a stall. He was attracted by a piece of floral cotton inside. He remembered that Xiao Zhao frowned in front of the mirror every day because he thought the maternity skirt on his body was too ugly. Zhang Chen looked at this A piece of floral cotton, I thought it would look good on Xiao Zhao.

When he was thinking like this, the cutting book he had been reading for the past two days immediately appeared in his mind. He thought that if it was flat cutting, what should the front piece look like, what should the back piece look like, how big should the armholes be, each one? The size actually appeared in his mind automatically. It was amazing. He seemed to have a whole set of maternity skirt models in his mind right away.

Then thinking about how to put this piece of cloth on Xiao Zhao and how to deal with the pleats to make Xiao Zhao's already bloated figure look slimmer, Zhang Chen couldn't help but walked forward, spread out some of the cloth spread out on the counter, and used My hands shook when I picked it up. The fabric feels very comfortable and the drape is good enough.

Although the boss told him that it was made of cotton, Zhang Chen had already concluded that it could not be made of cotton. There must be viscose in it. Zhang Chen grabbed a corner of the fabric and lit the lighter. The boss quickly stopped him. That's too late.

Zhang Chen saw that the fabric curled up slightly when it was about to come into contact with the flames, and then was ignited. There was a wisp of black smoke. Zhang Chen blew out the flames with a puff, and after a while, he went to twist the ashes on the edge of the fabric. There is obvious granularity.

Zhang Chen and the boss laughed and said, "It's not made of cotton."

The boss said angrily: "What are you doing?!"

Zhang Chen saw that the width of the cloth was 1.5 meters, and said to the boss: "Give me three meters."

Three meters can make two maternity skirts.

The boss turned his anger into joy and immediately said okay.

Even Zhang Chen himself didn’t know where his idea of ​​identifying fabrics came from. He thought that he had probably read too many books on clothing and wanted to understand it. He also vaguely remembered that a magazine wrote about people’s For skin, pure cotton fabric is not the best, on the contrary, blended fabric is the best.

The main reason why Zhang Chen took a fancy to this piece of fabric was that it was pure cotton and would not have such good drape. This was what he needed most.

After Zhang Chen bought the fabric, he went to a store selling accessories and bought several feet of lace and Songjiang tape.

After walking out of the fabric market, there was a newly built cultural products market next to it. Zhang Chen walked in and went to a paper stall. He bought ten sheets of kraft paper for clothing pattern making. He then went to a stationery stall and sold a handful of one meter. After buying the five-length plexiglass ruler, I saw that there was also a double-sided 60-centimeter-long grading ruler for garment pattern making, so Zhang Chen bought another one.

After buying these, Zhang Chen rode his bicycle back and looked at the time. It was already past eleven o'clock. Zhang Chen bought some fast food at the entrance of the market. When he walked in, he saw Xiao Zhao sitting in Fengzhen's stall, two people. Everyone was talking and laughing, and Zhang Chen couldn't help but be stunned for a moment.

He walked into his stall and put the things on the table. When Xiao Zhao saw Zhang Chen coming back, she hurried over. When she saw the things on the table, she felt a little confused. She patted the roll of brown paper and asked, what is this? ?

"It's for making boards." Zhang Chen said.

"You want to hit the board?" Xiao Zhao opened his eyes wide.

"Is it weird that I want to make patterns? Didn't you see that I have been reading books on clothing tailoring these two days? What's the point of just not practicing? I want to make use of the sewing machine at home."

Xiao Zhao patted the piece of floral cloth and said with a smile: "Okay, okay, I support you. What about this, are you going to make curtains as your debut?"

"Of course not." Zhang Chen said, "I want to make you a maternity dress."

"real?"

"Of course, take a look at this pattern and see if you like it."

Xiao Zhao nodded repeatedly: "I like it. You must have chosen the right one."

Zhang Chen pushed the paper and cloth into the table, took out the lunch box from the plastic bag, and the two of them sat down to eat. After finishing the meal, Xiao Zhao and Zhang Chen said, there is no business anyway, so you can go back or sit here. There is no place to sit, so go back and study your clothing tailoring skills. I wish you study hard and make progress every day.

Zhang Chen thought about what Xiao Zhao said made sense. He really had nothing to do here. Besides, after buying the things, his hands were really itchy just looking at them.

Zhang Chen and Xiao Zhao said, "Then I'll pick you up at half past five."

Xiao Zhao said yes.

"If someone buys pants and needs to move cardboard boxes..."

"I know, I will ask Ayong to help, and Fengzhen will also help me." Xiao Zhao said.

Zhang Chen stood up and turned around. He saw Fengzhen smiling at him, and Zhang Chen also smiled at her.

Thank you to Smiling and Running Y and Li Ruijin for your monthly votes! Thank you for all the votes and reading! I wish you all good health!