Review: eShakti

Although we've been hanging close to home this summer, building pergolas and working in the yard and whatnot, we have a decent amount of leisure travel coming up soon.  In addition to our annual Ragnar Trail event in November (back to McDowell Mountain this time...thank goodness!), we'll be traveling to a cooler climate in late October to attend a family wedding in Cleveland; my cousin Ashley will be wedding her love Brandon.  We're excited to travel and take part in the happy occasion, and since I didn't really have a dress that would work for a wedding in the (likely) cold climate, I decided it was time to go shopping!

Except, I really hate going shopping.  Like really, really hate it.  I don't mind browsing through a few shops, just to while away the time, but the "I'm on a mission and I must find something" shopping undertakings are not for me.  I should amend that - I love shopping for gifts for other people, particularly if I have months to do so, but when it comes to shopping for myself, I'm not generally enamored of the whole process.  Since becoming a telecommuter, I'm even more finicky about the endeavor of finding things in actual stores, as not spending time regularly in traffic makes me even pissier when I have to do so.  We have some great boutiques in our area, and the selection is expanded even further when you drive to downtown Long Beach, but most of it seems to be in the style characterized as "Bohemian."  That tends to be the style that is the farthest away from my own on the fashion spectrum, and while I could wander to a nearby beach town or Orange County to find other clothing options, the prices go up substantially when you do.

I know that's a full paragraph of whining about unimportant things, but I wanted to give you some background on how I ended up ordering a technically bespoke dress off the internet.  I was intrigued by yet another Facebook ad (they know what they're doing with those things, don't they?) for a company called eShakti.

The front page of their website

According to their site, you pick one of the dresses (or other items of clothing - dresses were just my focus) they have on offer, then you customize it as you wish.  They'll size it to your height for free, but you can also pay a one-time $10 customization fee, and they'll do all sorts of things to it - build it to a whole set of measurements you provide plus make alterations to the neckline, hem length, etc.  

At this juncture, I should take a moment to point out that I pondered using Rent the Runway, as several friends (mainly Toni and Tara) have made use of it with good results, including for occasions like this.  For the wedding, the timing of when we were flying in and out versus when the ceremony and reception would be cut things a little too close for RtR's shipment and return timelines; while I could have spent time the day after the wedding hunting for a post office to ship the garment back, I didn't really want to do that, choosing instead to enjoy exploring the city with family.  Also, with rental prices around $30-35 for each item, I could potentially find a decent dress for around $75-80 to serve my needs, and then it would be mine to keep for only a slightly larger cost.  Additionally, since you don't get the item from RtR until just before you need it, you don't seem to have a huge amount of time to find shoes, jewelry, handbags, and the like to go with it; you can see what you're getting online, so you can certainly pick things out that way, but I'm a little old-school to be truly comfortable with that, apparently (this has really been a voyage of self-discovery).

Anywhoo, back to eShakti.  When you order from their site, you're apparently ordering from the factory in India that makes the items, which is why customization can be done for such a low cost; the folks making your dress (I really hope they are adult folks and not child labor, as Chris keeps kidding me...) are already cutting out patterns and sewing things together, so if they need to change yours a bit, it costs far less than if you took an already complete dress in for alterations of the same type.  

The eShakti website offers tons of different fabric, print, and style options, and their dresses really encompass a huge range of tastes and preferences.  There are bohemian maxi-dresses, nautical striped shifts, floral A-lines, and tons more; truly, I was a bit gobsmacked with the options.  Once I started a login on the site, I was able to save my favorites to a wish list, which I then narrowed down with Chris' help (from 20 or so to the top 5, then 2 candidates).  Eventually, I settled on this dress:

As you can see here,

the dress is discounted.

The site offers continuous discounts,

and tons of offers like free shipping.

I actually might have to block them from

my Inbox soon.  It's a lot.

I ended up picking this particular one as I really liked the color and the white print, it's in a shape that normally looks decent on me, and it doesn't look like anything else I have in my closet right now.  I figured the cap sleeves and boatneck neckline (as well as the color) would make it fall appropriate, so I could use it for the wedding.  I could also use it for nicer dinners and things like graduation ceremonies or anniversaries and so on; things where a strappy cocktail dress might be a bit too revealing.  I also made sure to find a dress that was made of something other than stretch cotton, since that fabric generally doesn't read "nicer wedding" to me, plus it tends to fade significantly over time (the fabric I picked is washable, so that's good - they tell you all of these things on the website, which is nice as well).

Once I selected the dress, I started customizing things!  A shot of the options you have for sizing measurements:

If you click to make the image bigger, you can see that they'll either let you pick a general size for free, or you can pay the fee to put in custom measurements.  I was already planning to adapt the hem rise, so Chris encouraged me to do all the custom measurements, since it was all included in the same price (he helped me with the measuring part).  As I mentioned above, on most items, eShakti also lets you change other features:

Those are neckline, sleeve, and hem length options.  The original dress (as seen in the shot above) was tea length, which isn't a great option for me (for many folks, actually); I'm too short for it to not make me look super stumpy, and since I'm likely going to wear flats (there will be dancing!), I need a bit more leg showing than that.  While I initially planned to bring it up two options to knee-length, the dress does have a short (2-3") slit on each side of the skirt, so I didn't want to flash everyone a lot of upper thigh at this event.  

In the reviews I'd read about eShakti, it seemed like the biggest complaint was the amount of time it took to get the garments, so I ordered on the early side, on July 8th.  Not only would this give the dress plenty of time to arrive, but it would also give me time to execute a backup plan, should the dress arrive as a hot mess.  I'm not sure if the firm has worked a few things out since those reviews were published, as I received it only two-ish weeks later, on July 25th (and it really did come all the way from India in that time).

Hooray!  It's my dress!

I was pleased to see that the dress was lined, albeit lightly so.  Depending on the weather and how much sun I'll be standing in, I might end up wearing a slip as well.

Also, most of the eShakti dresses have pockets already placed in them, but you can have the pockets not added for free.  As a review I read stated, why would you take out pockets?!?!?!, and I generally agree, although I understand their inference with the line of the garment sometimes.  I probably won't use them for much, with the exception of a few Kleenex or something.

Pocket!

Once Chris got home, we headed out for our afternoon exercise, and after cleaning up, I tried on the dress and had him take some shots.  Obviously (or maybe not so obviously), I am planning on putting on actual makeup, doing my hair, wearing shoes, etc for the event.

The front!

The back!

As an aside,

how does someone so tall

cut off people's heads in pictures?

You'd think that would be his pet peeve.

The goofy shot with the pockets!

As you can see, the dress looks remarkably like the one in the website shot, albeit just a bit shorter, as intended.  Overall, it fits pretty well, although there's a bit more fabric (a half-inch or so, so not much) on the side than I'd like to see.  It's not super obvious, and I can wear the dress without issue, but I'm not sure if we measured wrong or eShakti did, as it doesn't fit me as perfectly as I'd like.  However, for the final cost of $44 (after all the discounts and free shipping, but including the $10 customization fee), to me, it seems worth it.  

As far as quality goes, the workmanship (excluding the measuring concern mentioned above) seems legit and a few notches above what I'd expect at this price point.  While the back panels don't match each other perfectly, it's close enough to not be super jarring, which is a feat on its own with such a busy print.  The fabric itself also seems a bit better than what I'd expect to see for $50 or so; in my mind, I'm comparing it to dresses at the Gap or another spot of that ilk, and the fabric is nicer than that.  I'd probably place it in the range of a dress that would cost $100-120 full retail in a shop in the mall, and since my total was about half that, the frugal part of me is mighty pleased.

All things considered, I'd buy something from eShakti again, particularly because their stuff is almost dirt-cheap (again, I hope it's not because of child labor) and seems to get the job done.  Although I'm not planning on washing the dress before the wedding (it seemed to smell and feel fine right out of the shipping box, so I'll just de-wrinkle it a bit further - including when we arrive in Cleveland after a long stint in my luggage on the plane), I will after that, so we'll see if it disintegrates the moment it touches water or vanishes in a puff of smoke or something.  Now on to buy shoes!

Later!

Amy