UPTOWNflavor

The Urban Eye: Djema Imports

This Harlem shop specializes in crafting custom clothing from African fabric; you choose the print, and they make you a one-of-a-kind outfit, often within a few days. (Who says you need to go to Paris for couture?)

At Djema Imports on East 125th Street in Harlem, tidy piles of all-cotton African-made fabrics in a variety of patterns and colors line the wall; on racks in the center, there are coats, shirts, dresses and scarves and even faux flowers made with those same fabrics. The Yara family, who own the place, might speak among themselves in Bambara, the language they learned growing up in Mali, but they are happy to switch to English.

Customers can pick out a fabric ($5 a yard for African prints; mud cloth pieces from $15 to $150 depending on size) and say what they want it turned into a coat, a shirt, a dress, a pillowcase, and the tailors in the back of the store get to work. (Visitors on a short stay can often pick up their items the next day.) NYTimes.com

Djema Imports, 6 East 125th Street, Harlem, (212) 289-3842.