By Alyssa Schnugg
News editor
When one door closed for seamstress Pushpa Jayaratna, another opened – the door to her own alteration businesses.
Originally from Sri Lanka, Jayaratna arrived in Oxford in January 2009 after winning the Green Card Lottery and receiving her VISA to migrate to the U.S.
She went to work for Peggy’s Alterations and Dress Making on North Lamar Boulevard as a seamstress and remained there for 10 years, honing her skills.
“I learned everything about alterations from Ms. Peggy,” Jayaratna said.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Peggy’s Alterations closed its doors for good. With “Ms. Peggy’s blessing,” Jayaratna opened her own alteration shop, Pearl Alterations, located at 1295 N. Lamar Blvd. Suite D.
Jayaratna works with her daughter, Windy, who is learning the business and her son, University of Mississippi Integrated Marketing and Communication grad student Chamil, who helps her to market the alteration shop.
As long as people continue to be born in all different shapes and sizes, Jayaratna said her skills will be necessary.
“Because most of the ready-made items are not fit to customers, we do small changes to them to satisfy customer needs,” she said. “In alterations, we may have to do shortening, lengthening, take in, take out, adding extra fabrics and re-arranging for different parts of the clothes.
Pearls Alterations offers alteration services for all adult and children clothing, including wedding dresses and party frocks.
Jayaratna has also worked for Hinton Hinton textile shop on the Square for more than eight years.
“They appreciate my service,” Jayaratna said.
For more information, call (662) 638-3119.
