Alert pigeon Kelli introduced me to this wonderful web site, eShakti.com, the other day. The concept is pure awesomeness: it’s like I can pick up the phone and call my seamstress friend and say, “Hey, Joanne, could you make me this really cute dress? I’mma send you a photo and my measurements. You know how I’m built like a Bantam Rooster, so could you give me generous coverage around the lower abdomen but cut the skirt a little less full to show off my gams?” (The best seamstress I know is actually named Joanne, so that’s a shout-out right there).
And she says, “Oh sure, I can do that.” And you pay her a really reasonable amount of money and BAM, you get your custom frock in the mail! That’s what Shakti does. The styles are classic and even vintage. The current line seems a bit twee for older women, but there are many choices and they go up to size 26:
Super cute pencil skirt:
I love a pretty print skirt and they’re so hard to find! This color green makes me swoon:
A beautiful, classic dress, and it comes in several colors:
For this, I have severe lust. This is so me, with a cardigan and a pair of really high crazy chunky heels:
This is a bit cutie-pie for me but I would certainly wear it for summer at the office with a white cotton cardigan, and possibly for a day as a retreat facilitator:
I didn’t want to promote this site without knowing a little bit about their labor practices and philosophy, so I wrote to them asking about their wages and who sews for them. I did find this interview from About.com with C.E.O. B. G. Krishnan that answered a lot of my questions:
Q: We understand that the handiwork for each piece is completed in India. How is that advantageous for customers?
A: A lot of the work that we do is extremely skilled work and this has traditionally been a big strength in India. Some of the skills, like the shadow embroidery for instance, or certain kinds of hand-block printing, and certain kinds of vegetable dyes go back hundreds of years and have a distinctive, unique look. While the costs are rising globally, and that applies to India as well, more so since we pay about twice the national average for wages in India, the costs in India still remain economic.
Something our customers might be interested to know is that we provide continuous employment with a good salary to a lot of skilled artisans. Our value chain extends at one end to our customers for whom what we offer is unique and beautiful and at the other end to our employees for whom their job at eShakti represents assured and much higher earning than what they would otherwise get. It might be important to reiterate here that we only employ those over 18 years of age and in fact most of our employees are over 21. Our work environment is the same across all personnel in the company and we work out of an air-conditioned space, one of the few of its kind in India.
The customers get distinctive garments that they can’t readily find in a store, and at a price that is extremely affordable and excellent value for money.
Let me know if you have purchased anything from them. Love to hear your opinions!
This sounds like the answer to so many clothing dilemnas! I do not wear short sleeved or sleeveless- so having the ability to add sleeves is great; so is the variable skirt length. I pass up too many dresses because of no sleeves!
FYI, I just bought a dress from eshakti for my parents’ anniversary party over the weekend. I did the custom measurements and even asked them to change the waist placement for me because my waist is longer than many dresses are cut. They asked me for extra measurements, and the dress fits perfectly. I got many compliments and felt like a million bucks, but most importantly, I did not feel like I had to adjust and fuss with my dress all night.
When I first looked at the site after I saw it on BTFM I didn’t find much that worked for me style wise. But since then, they seem to have expanded their product line. There are now multiple dresses I would like (but don’t really need!) so it’s way fun.
I have heard that some have had issues with shipping taking forever or measurements not being exactly right, but I have ordered twice and not had an issue, and I have a friend whose order came promptly, too.