Mas

By: Lauren Helper/MÁS staff

Description: Hope’s Uniform and Tailoring shop stitches together three decades of steady business

Hope Hernandez has spent her life on pins and needles.

Not in the sense that she’s lived with nervous anticipation about what might happen next; she’s far too practical for that.

Rather, Hernandez has devoted herself to the art of tailoring.

When she was just a girl, Hernandez realized she was “sew inclined,” so to speak.

And from that point on, she’s spent day in and day out taking measurements — on her hands and knees in cramped dressing rooms with pins in her mouth and hands — followed by the rhythmic thudding and whirring of a busy sewing machine.

A hem there, a tuck here, a gather there ...

Hours became days and days became years, stitches in time — yet Hernandez continues, immune to changes in fabric, faces and fashion.

“I love sewing. I can sew day and night. I love the machines, the repetition and the fast pace,” said Hope Hernandez, 59, owner of Hope’s Uniform and Tailoring on 20th and L streets in downtown Bakersfield.

Hernandez wouldn’t be surprised if her epitaph was written in tailor’s chalk.

“I plan to work until I drop dead. I’ll probably go out hugging a sewing machine,” she said, laughing.

This month marks Hope’s eighth year at the 1315 20th St. spot, and her 28th year in business for herself. She and her daughters, Deborah “Debbie” Hernandez and Sara Cebreros (son Tony Jr. is a correctional officer), welcome about 50 customers a day into the small store filled with piles of clothes, spools of thread, measuring tapes, hangers, bodkins and pincushions.

Each of the three women is expected to produce at least $400 of work a day. Prices range from $8 for a hem to $75 to $80 to completely recut a man’s suit.

The women work on Singer and Rex machines, some decades old.

For Hernandez’s daughters, the sewing machines represent, like no other object, the love of their mother and the sacrifices she’s made to support her family.

“I’m so proud of her. She’s come along way,” said Debbie.

Hope began sewing at 16 — the same age she married her husband, Tony Hernandez Sr. — for a lady in Arvin who produced clothes for the Los Angeles-based Teddy label and taught her to work on industrial machines.

It was a perfect, tailor-made profession for Hope, whose tias in Texas all sewed.

After a brief stint tailoring bridal dresses for Beverly’s Bridal — “I didn’t like it. I got lost under the fabric.” — Hernandez turned to her sister, Bee Lostaunau, also a seamstress, who taught her to tailor men’s suits.

Hernandez then worked for Casper’s Men’s Store before being “stolen” by Don Monan of Seiler’s Men’s Store. When Seiler’s closed down, Monan encouraged Hope to start out on her own.

“He said, ‘Kiddo, you’re on your own,’” Hernandez recalled.

Monan even recommended a shoebox-sized storefront at 17th Place downtown.

“He said, ‘You can stay there a year and then move on.’ I was there 21 years,” said Hernandez, laughing.

There was a good clientele from the beginning, and business at 17th Place expanded like a growing waistline.

At first, Hernandez tailored only men’s clothes, but soon women sought her out, discovering that Hernandez could tailor not only their clothes, but their image, altering women’s outfits as they lost or gained weight or when styles changed.

It wasn’t unusual for Hernandez to work 16-hour days.

Daughter Debbie, now 41, started sewing at age 11.

“She walked in and said, ‘Can I help you?’ And she never stopped,” said Hernandez.

Debbie said sewing is a natural high for her.

“My mind goes somewhere else. When I’m finished, I think, ‘Did I do that?” It’s nice to create something,” said Debbie, whose own daughter, Catrina Aguilar, a Bakersfield College student, helps at the store with computer work.

Sara, 30, joined the business after high school, but prefers to work at the front desk.
 
“I like to interact and form relationships with customers. Some of them come in every other week,” said Sara, who added that out-of-town customers will also bring clothes when they visit relatives or drive through Bakersfield.

Debbie said the atmosphere at work is strictly professional.

“At work she’s ‘Hope.’ After we leave, then it’s ‘Mom’ again.”

Making sure the business was successful did require significant sacrifices, some that required mending later down the road.

“My mom and I never got to raise our own kids. They were always in daycare or with baby sitters,” said Debbie, who remembers one time when she received a call from her children’s private school.

“They said, ‘It’s 4:15, where are you? School was over an hour and a half ago.’ We had gotten so busy at work that we’d completely forgotten to pick them up,” said Debbie, who can see the humor in the incident now.

Nieces and nephews have come and gone, often helping pay their way through school thanks to a job with Hernandez.

She relocated to her current location in 1999, when she was literally bursting at the seams in the old 17th Place store.

“There were racks all the way to the ceiling,” she said. The new location is a spacious 2,000 square feet.

Hernandez has seen styles change over the years.

First, businessmen strictly wore suits, then sports coats and slacks, then back to suits.

Then there was the unfortunate women’s power dressing trend of the ‘80s, when shoulder width and pads grew along with the quest for female identity.

And prom dresses? Hernandez says they’ve only gotten shorter, with hemlines headed far above the knee.

She creates very few clothing items from scratch these days, but usually gets talked into doing at least a few prom dresses and matching ties each season.

Hernandez says she’s kept her customers and gained new ones because it’s not the kind of place where buttons pop or collars wilt after a few wearings.

“I’m picky about my work,” she admits, and said regular customers settle for nothing less than perfection.

“One man said, ‘Hope, I was OK before I started coming to you. You’ve created a monster! Now I have to have everything just so,’” Hernandez said.

Customers at Hope’s range in age from 3 to 90, and requests range from the typical to the downright unusual.

“One time, a man arrived in a limo wearing only a bathrobe. He wanted his suit altered and put a rush on it, so we did it while he waited outside. Then he changed into his suit and off he went. I never knew to where,” Hernandez said.

Her shop’s proximity to the courthouse often finds her fixing accidents like split pants.

“They will run here and sit in the dressing room while we solve the problem,” said Hope.

Hernandez’s most elaborate project was alterations to an expensive, sequined, mother-of-the-bride dress. Her smallest — in terms of coverage, at least — was a set of G-strings for a local male exotic dancer.

“He wanted little bow ties and tuxedos sewn on them,” said Hernandez.

Local attorney John Tello has been taking his suits and slacks to Hope for 20-something years. Her 17th St. alley location was convenient when he was an attorney at Chain-Younger.

“My mom was a tailor, and Hope’s shop reminded me of my mom’s,” said Tello, who said over the years, he has become good friends with the Hernandez family.

“She’s a jewel. She treats everyone so well. Plus, when I need something right away she’ll get it done — and, she makes me tamales at Christmas,” said Tello.

To longtime customer Deborah Leary, Hernandez is nothing less than a “dreamstress.”

“She is an expert seamstress. Nobody does it better,” said Leary, spokeswoman for the American Cancer Society’s Bakersfield.

Leary said because she’s very petite, she can’t wear clothes off the rack and brings Hernandez everything from designer suits to bargains from Target.

Leary’s husband, Gary and sons, Anthony and Joey, are also customers.

Leary appreciates Hope’s attention to detail — and honesty.

“She is expressly devoted to you and what looks best on you. She is an objective eye when you need one,” Leary said. “I’m a seasonal shopper, so I came in with my summer clothes, and when they were ready I said, ‘This should hold me over until fall.’ But Hope said, ‘You’re going to come across a sale. I’ll see you before fall.’”

Sure enough, Leary was back a few weeks later with two suits — pink seersucker and white linen — she’d found on consignment.

“Hope said, ‘I knew you’d be back,’” said Leary, laughing.

Leary also knows Hernandez to be a strong woman who supports her family and always comes to work with a smile, even when she’s feeling her worst, like when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in November 2001.

Hernandez’s sister Bee — at that time the owner of Busy Bee Tailoring in Tehachapi — closed her store to come and temporarily take over for Hope’s.

But Hernandez only stayed home one week before returning to work.

“Even my doctor said, ‘You don’t do well at home.’ I was in everybody’s way,” said Hernandez, who’s now cancer-free. Sadly, her sister Bee died about a month ago.

“Hope’s a survivor and a true inspiration,” said Leary.

Hernandez only closes the store for one week a year. She doesn’t so much as pick up a needle at home, though. She had a sewing room at home years ago, but husband Tony couldn’t tolerate the noise.

Hernandez works regular hours during the summer and longer hours in the fall and winter when people wear more clothes, she said.

About a year ago Hernandez, who has always done uniform alterations, began selling actual uniforms for the California Department of Corrections. She plans to expand that element of the business.

Customers, friends and family are confident she’ll do so — without missing a stitch.