My name is Mz Kitty, and I'm addicted to fabric ...

It's true ... I can't help myself. Whenever I travel I have to collect fabric. And the mother lode is H. P. Singh, Nehru Place, Delhi (closely followed by Okadaya department store in Tokyo, and Habu Textiles in New York if you want to sacrifice your home or first born child).

On one trip to India I brought fabric from travels in Japan and China to get stitched. That's seven dresses worth of fabric. After a trip to the pre-Diwali hand loom fair at Dilli Haat I had enough for seven more long kurthas with left overs. This trip H. P. Singh provided fabric for three pants, two shorts, and two skirts (and I only went in for some grey wool for a skirt).  Lajpat Nagar market rounded the debauchery out with two punjabi suits (enough for kurtha, pants and dupatta).

I have had several tailors now who inevitably disappoint in their inability to turn what I'm seeing in my head into an actual piece of wearable fashion. Mr Noor has been with me the longest and can generally get a kurtha together as long as I'm okay with Chinese collars. He never bats an eyelid even when I turn up with saris and bed spreads to be converted into kurthas. Only once have I seen him stutter as I placed before him a Keralan cotton dupatta, hand painted with a winding lotus.

Master ji: 'Lining madam?'
Mz Kitty: 'No Master ji'
Raised eyebrow. Master ji places his hand underneath the fabric to show its transparency.
Mz Kitty: 'I promise I will only wear it in Europe'.
A sigh; eyebrow lowered.

So concerned is he with my respectability that for sleeveless kurthas he makes little loops on the shoulders to attach my bra straps to so I don't disgrace myself with slippage of lingerie.

Trousers, shirts and dresses can be trickier. My first attempt at getting a halterneck backless dress made took three attempts. The first rendition came back stitched into a version of skirted overalls that if I'd worn without a shirt underneath (defeating somewhat the purpose of a backless dress) would have created an outfit Ann Summers could display in her front window. The second and third tries added patchwork strips till eventually it resembled the original image. The last batch of dresses all had to be sent back at least twice as my hips had expanded in the tailor's imagination to encompass an awful lot of child bearing.

But I think Delhi's tailors are finally rebelling and blacklisting me having worked out that it is an impossible task to make 'madam ji' happy. I had to ask four tailors in Khan Market before I found one who would take on a job of two capris and converting a kurtha into a skirt. But
then maybe a total ban is the only cure.