Hoi An is a UNESCO World Heritage town on Vietnam’s central coast, famous for its preserved ancient architecture, riverside lanterns, and an absolutely improbable concentration of tailor shops. There are approximately 400 tailors in a town of 120,000 people. This is one tailor for every 300 residents, which suggests either that Hoi An’s population is extraordinarily well-dressed or that something else is happening.

What’s happening is motorcycle tourism meets fast fashion meets the specific delusion that you need a custom-made leather riding suit while traveling through Southeast Asia.

I fell victim to this delusion. In my defense, the pitch is compelling: “Custom leather motorcycle jacket, your measurements, your design, 24-hour turnaround, $150.” In the West, a custom leather jacket costs $800-1,500 and takes weeks. In Hoi An, it costs less than a budget hotel room and happens faster than you can reconsider your life choices.

The process begins with you walking past a tailor shop. You were planning to just browse the ancient town, maybe eat some cao lau noodles, enjoy the riverside ambiance. But a tailor sees you – or more accurately, sees your motorcycle helmet and riding gear – and suddenly you’re in a conversation about how you definitely need a custom jacket.

The pitch escalates quickly. They have leather samples. They have design books showing previous work. They have testimonials from satisfied customers from Germany, Australia, America. They have a tape measure and a confidence that suggests they’ve done this before. Many times. Today.

You find yourself being measured. Not just chest and arms, but shoulder width, back length, sleeve length with arm bent vs. straight, waist, the distance from shoulder seam to where you think a pocket should be. It’s thorough. It’s professional. It’s happening faster than your skepticism can organize itself into objections.

Then comes design. Do you want CE-rated armor? (They have armor.) What about padding? (They have padding.) Ventilation? (They have ventilation zippers.) Pockets? (How many pockets do you want? They can do pockets.) The options accumulate until you’re designing something that in your mind looks like professional motorcycle gear.

The price is negotiable, which means the price is fictitious. They start at $200. You counter with $120. They look hurt. You feel guilty. You agree on $150 and tell yourself you’ve gotten a deal. They tell you to return tomorrow evening. The jacket will be ready.

Here’s where the existential dread begins: you walk out having committed $150 to a jacket that doesn’t exist yet, made by people you met twenty minutes ago, in a town you’re leaving in three days, based on measurements taken with a tape measure that may or may not be accurate.

You spend the next 24 hours wondering: What have I done? Do I actually need this jacket? Where will I even wear it? How am I going to pack it for the rest of my trip? What if it doesn’t fit? What if the leather is terrible quality? What if this entire industry is built on selling unnecessary items to tourists who are temporarily convinced they need custom clothing?

The answer to that last question is yes. Obviously yes. The entire Hoi An tailor industry exists because tourists are willing to buy custom-made items they don’t need, in a place they’re leaving soon, at prices that seem too good to be true. It’s fast fashion optimized for the adventure tourism market.

But here’s the thing: when you return the next evening, the jacket exists. They’ve made an actual jacket based on your actual measurements in 24 hours. You try it on. It fits. Not perfectly – the sleeves are slightly long, the waist is slightly loose – but it fundamentally fits your body.

The leather quality is… questionable. It’s definitely leather. It’s probably cow. It’s not the thick, protective leather you’d want in an actual motorcycle accident. It’s fashion leather that looks like motorcycle gear. The armor pockets exist but are in approximately the right places, not precisely the right places. The zippers work but feel cheap.

You’re standing in this tailor shop, wearing a custom jacket that cost $150 and took one day to make, and you’re confronting the gap between expectation and reality. This isn’t the high-quality riding gear you imagined. But it’s also not garbage. It’s something in between – functional enough, aesthetically close enough, cheap enough that you can’t really complain.

This is the moment of existential choice: do you accept the jacket (and your decision to order it), or do you request modifications and extend this transaction into a multi-day negotiation about sleeve length and leather quality?

Most people accept it. I accepted it. Not because it was perfect, but because it was done, and sometimes done is better than perfect, and the alternative was days of tailor shop visits discussing adjustments that would improve the jacket from 70% satisfactory to maybe 75% satisfactory.

I wore that jacket exactly three times. Once in Vietnam for photos (which was the real purpose all along). Once in Thailand where it was too hot. Once back home where it felt like a costume. Then it went into a closet where it remains, a $150 reminder of the time I convinced myself I needed custom motorcycle gear made in 24 hours by Vietnamese tailors.

But here’s what makes this experience philosophically interesting: the jacket’s uselessness doesn’t make the purchase wrong. The value wasn’t the jacket itself. The value was participating in a system that shouldn’t work but does – an entire town that’s organized around producing custom clothing at impossible speeds for tourists who don’t need it.

Hoi An’s tailors have perfected the art of selling experiential purchases disguised as practical items. You’re not buying a jacket; you’re buying the story of having a jacket custom-made in Vietnam. The jacket is just evidence that the story happened.

This is late-stage capitalism meeting adventure tourism meeting craft tradition, and somehow all three are profiting. The tailors make money. The tourists get souvenirs with narratives attached. Nobody’s being deceived – everyone knows what this transaction actually is. It’s just that we’ve all agreed to pretend it’s about the jacket.

I still have that jacket. It’s too nice to throw away and too impractical to wear. It exists in liminal space – not quite waste, not quite useful. A leather monument to the gap between what we think we need while traveling and what we actually need.

Which is to say: we don’t need custom motorcycle suits from Hoi An tailors. But we buy them anyway because travel is partially about making questionable decisions and then carrying the consequences in our luggage for the rest of the trip.

The dread is existential because it forces you to confront your own participation in a system you can see through but can’t resist. You know it’s a performance. You know the jacket isn’t necessary. You buy it anyway because being able to tell people “I had this custom-made in Vietnam” is worth $150.

And honestly? It was.