While visiting the Haberdashery Souk in Deira yesterday (more about that in the next post) we stumbled across a small sewing machine shop in a side street. Of course I can't just walk past old sewing machines without having a closer look. At fist glance these machines looked like old Singers, but on closer inspection it turned out to be all different and unknown brand names from India and China.
The most beautiful one was a Butterfly machine. The man in the shop told me it was from India, but I have since learned it is from China. Apparently it is a copy of the Singer model 15 machine.
The metal and paintwork is beautiful. The man told me the machine is in full working condition and comes with a wooden base and box (which I didn't see) and sells for AED220 (US$60 / GBP36)
I didn't buy it, but it was beautiful to look at. No doubt modern machines do a great job, but isn't it a joy to see so much decoration going into something so utilitarian? I am sure a person working with a machine like this cannot produce anything ugly.
PS:
While searching the internet for more information on these machines I found these wonderful resources:
I apologize for the poor photo quality. The shop was quite small and not very well lit.
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