The pandemic affected a seamstress' career. Now she uses a pushcart for her innovative side hustle.
Right from the tailor shop she fashioned out of a pushcart that was once used to roast nuts, Makayla Wray sews new life into customers' clothing and into New York City. The 29-year-old seamstress began her sidewalk side hustle after the pandemic ripped away her freelance jobs in the fashion industry.
"During this pandemic you are proof that New York City is still alive," CBS News told Wray.
"I think it definitely is," she responded. "I feel like this gives people the time to be creative."
Wray refashions threads, zippers and buttons, and creates tailor-made memories, like a pair of military pants turned into a bucket hat.
"I look at it kind of like an art form," said Wray.
"I just feel like it tells a better story if you just keep wearing something that you already were like living through," said Aren Johnson, a client.
This seamstress is stitching together New York nostalgia, ingenuity and resilience.
"I can't afford a studio; I want one," said Wray. "But now I have a studio on the street, so that's kinda cool."