LLADYBIRD

Here be another product review for eShakti.com. I wasn’t 100% thrilled with the first dress they sent me (honestly, it ended up getting donated because I just COULD NOT deal with those arm holes), so after they contacted me, I decided to give them a second chance.

For those of you who don’t know, eShakti is an online shop that sells a variety of cute lady clothes (not just dresses, there are skirts and blouses floating around there as well) in sizes 0-36, as well as offers inexpensive customizations for your size and certain style options (such as adding sleeves, shortening the hemline, etc). The prices are reasonable, and it’s definitely a good option if you normally have problems fitting into straight sizes, since you can adjust the measurements to correspond with *your* body.

This is the contrast poplin trim dress (unavailable now, sorry!). After the deal with the last dress, I was careful to choose something that-
1. Could easily be adjusted at the shoulders;
2. Was 100% cotton
This one fit the bill, and it was pretty cute, so I requested it and it was promptly shipped to me. I’m just going to say this now – I’ve been waiting to photograph this dress for a couple of months now. Why hasn’t it made it to the blog sooner?

UM. DO YOU SEE HOW SHORT IT IS?

I KNOW I just made like short short short BUTTCHEEK shorts, but shorts and a full-skirted dress are two entirely different beasts, if you will. I just can’t feel comfortable in a big skirt that only needs the slightest gust of wind to expose even more leg, you know? So I had to wait, and figure out my undergarment situation. And also buy a new bra – you can’t tell too much in these pictures because I’m wearing a strapless, but the straps are pushed way more toward the center than a standard bra. This means you cannot wear a bra with straps with this dress – the straps end up side-by-side. I needed a new strapless bra anyway, but man.

Anyway, back to the dress! It IS pretty cute – I love the nauticalness, and it looks equally good with bright yellow (or even brown!). It has pockets, as evidenced by me not taking my hands out of them at all. The quality is acceptable – nothing terrible, but nothing groundbreaking either. The back has elastic to accommodate more sizes (which honestly, kind of drives me crazy. If this is made-to-size, then why do you need elastic?). You can’t really see in these pictures, but there are some sweet tucks and covered buttons at the bodice. CUTE.

I do NOT understand how this dress came out so short, to be honest. I’m 5’2″ – I don’t think I’ve ever had an issue with a dress being too short on me. On my last dress, I requested that the hemline hit above the knee – and it’s knee-length on me (figures). So for this round, I chose “short dress.” And woohoooeeeooo is this dude short!

So what do you do with a too-short dress that can’t be let out at the hemline and cannot have length added (thank, stripes!)?

You make matching bloomers and pretend like it’s a playsuit set!

(Oh god, this picture is probably going to end up in sooo many Flickr spank-banks, ughh, the things I do for you guys haha)

Remember these? These are the Madeleine mini-bloomers, a free download from Colette patterns. Yep, free! I love these things and I knew they would go perfectly under this dress – the skirt is full enough where the bloomers don’t add bulk, and they’re cute enough where I don’t mind a wind situation now.

I used a remnant from my local fabric store, and pretty navy/red ribbon to tie it in with the dress.

I love the way the elastic looks at the waistline – and it’s sooo comfortable. Like wearing pajamas. I totally wear these are pajamas, btw.

Pretty sweet, huh?

I’m still not totally sure on my feels for eShakti at this time. They definitely need to add a skirt length measurement in the dress descriptions, because that would help when determining how much to shorten or lengthen if you are customizing. At least the sizing is much better this time – which I consider a personal victory with the size of my bust vs ribcage. So yay for that, I guess!

~*~Disclosure: I was not financially compensated for this post, although I did receive a sample to review & keep. All opinions on this product are my own.

Tags: dress, eShakti, review

Fair Warning: I did not sew this dress at all. This is a product review for eShakti. They mailed me a dress of my choosing, and now I get to talk about it on the internet woohoo!

When I was first contacted for a review, my initial thought was, “lolwut.” I mean, this is a sewing blog. I make clothes and then we talk about how awesome (or not awesome, I can swing both ways) the finished piece is. Trying out something for someone else’s clothing line just seemed weird and completely against the entire point of this damn blog. I’m not ~punk rock~ anymore, but I still get real weirded out at the idea of selling out, if that means anything.

Then I realized that there are lots of people who read this blog who don’t sew – or don’t sew clothes. There are a lot of us out there who struggle with getting a good fit (and yep, I’m part of this crew! Always learning new stuff!), and it sure would be nice to have a grey area between “Making Everything I Wear” and “Buying Bullshit At The Mall That Doesn’t Fit Over My Ass.” You know?

So, my non-sewing readers. This is for you. And also for me, because, hey, free purple dress 😀

If you’re not familiar with eShakti, it is a website that sells cute lady clothes. Mostly dresses, but there are also tops and coats and even skirts floating around if you look hard enough. Everything is adorable, and there is a wide range of styles to cover most events, from cocktail parties to a semi-professional office. What makes them unique, though, is that they not only offer a serious slew of sizes – 0-36! – but you can customize the fit to accommodate your ass. Or boobs, or petite stature, or whatever. In addition (I know, I’m just blowing your mind over here), you can change certain design elements as it strikes your fancy. Changing up sleeves, hem length, and sometimes even the neckline. So basically, it’s like the seamstresses’ dream wardrobe without actually pulling out the sewing machine and doing it yourself. FANCY.

Oh, I forgot to mention the price range. Most of the stuff they offer is under $80, and any customization is $7.50. Not too shabby, eh?

For my dress, I went with the Ruffled Tiers, except mine is purple, obviously, and not black. I didn’t see the purple one on the site anywhere, so sorry if you’re salivating in jealousy over mine (on the other hand, I did just discover this green goddess one, this silk (!!!) one, and this one that is totally channeling Liz Taylor, and now I’m really jealous haha). It was really hard to NOT just get a fancy cocktail dress, but seriously? I own like a dozen of those things and I couldn’t tell you the last time I actually wore one. So I went with something office-appropriate, in a pattern/fabric that I wouldn’t sew myself (too slinky!), that would also be suitable for biking. I did end up customizing the sizing (since this is normally an issue for me with RTW), but I kept the general style of the dress the same as it looks on the site.

And how did that turn out, you might ask?

ME GUSTA.

Seriously, though, isn’t it just adorable? I’m a big fan of the color, especially… and all the cascading ruffles. The off-center neck bow is my favorite part.

From a construction perspective, I have no complaints. Obviously, we’re not talking about the finest couture here – this dress is polyester, after all – but I will say that I was pleasantly surprised. I actually studied the insides like I was studying for a test, except that I was giving it the Evil Eye the entire time and waiting for it to slip up somewhere.

I would like everyone to know that this dress is absolutely perfect for cycling in – a good length to prevent flashing, and the shirring in the back keeps it snug without cutting off circulation.

My only beef is that the armholes are a bit low on me – see my bra peeking out? Yikes! I think this problem is pretty unique to me and my body, though – I definitely have low shoulders in comparison to my bust size (hence why it is so important to do a FBA on sewing patterns and not just size up), and most stuff has to be taken up quite a bit there. Out of all the measurements I gave, shoulder height was not one. So I’m going to chalk this up to LT-body problems and not point fingers back to eShakti.

That one doesn’t bother me too bad, though, because…

THIS DRESS LOOKS SO FUCKING AWESOME WITH MY MUSTARD AGATHA CARDIGAN.
Doesn’t it?! I knew it as soon as I spied it on the site. Actually – it looks good with ALL my handknits, including the Chuck sweater. The top is fairly sleek and smooth, so there isn’t much bulk when you wear stuff over it. Add in a ruffly tiered skirt and a little bow at the neck and now we’re just talking straight-up adorable.

Right now, they are offering $25 off your first purchase! Someone should go buy this dress, because holy shit I want.

In conclusion: Big thanks and thumbs up for eShakti!
In other news, I have a new garment on the sewing table that just needs picture… hope to get a post up this week 🙂

~*~Disclosure: I was not financially compensated for this post, although I did receive a sample to review & keep. All opinions on this product are my own.

Tags: dress, eShakti, review