Did you know that the concept of having ready-to-wear clothes started way back in the 1930s?
Can you imagine what this meant for individuals who were born before then? It meant that every single piece of cloth a person had was customized. That is, they were specifically measured and tailored just to fit a particular person. In order words, if you, for instance, wanted to stock up your wardrobe back then, you would have to wait
for all the styles you picked to be sewn.

Although the process allowed for exclusivity, seeing as people had their very own customised clothes, it must also have been quite a hectic process with a long wait. This story took a dramatic turn when a small fashion house in Paris decided to create a limited selection of what they called prêt-à-porter, which translates as ready-to-wear clothing. By the end of the 1930s, what had started small blew into mass production, servicing many customers.

The most interesting part of this development is that it soon reached other countries like the United States, UK and now, ready-to-wear attire has taken a good percentage of the clothing market.

However, this concept was only able to live this long because many designers imbibed this into their strategy and kept on creating even more beautiful ready-to-wear clothes. There is a long list of these designers, however, we will be dwelling on just one of them.

Esther Eke Dadikiye is an admirable fashion designer whose fashion journey began as an Image Consultant. With skills gathered as an Image Consultant, she was able to identify a significant gap in the market for brands catering specifically to black and brown women. This led her to establish her brand, Stitch Empress in 2019.

This brand is a ready-to-wear fashion brand based in Lagos. It is dedicated to crafting affordable, functional, and stylish pieces for women around the globe. Over the years, they have successfully reached customers in more than 30 countries, thanks to their quality designs and collections.

Within the time they have been running as a brand, they have released various collections including the 2021 upbeat collection. it is a timeless collection that contains two eccentric pieces that you will fall in love with at first sight.

The first dress in the Stitch Empress 2021 Upbeat collection is the Dirndl set, a two-piece garb made from an abstract spandex floral fabric. The dress is also accompanied by several impressive designs.

The first thing you will notice after taking a look at this dress is the neckline, slanted shapes and covered buttons. The reason behind this is that these features are not overused designs. The dress is said to have been inspired by the Chinese female traditional attire known as Cheongsam. The neckline and left side of the set’s blouse can be seen to be spotting the main attributes of the Cheongsam dress which are, an asymmetrical front opening, mandarin collar, and Hua niu buttons.

Similarly, the Stitch Empress’s Dirndl set has a mock neckline which can also be called a turtleneck, an asymmetrical opening, and in place of a Hua niu button is a black-covered button. Despite these similarities, this set is distinctive from the Cheongsam dress because of the inclusion of modern skills and designs. Another feature of the dress is the cropped design. It has unique dart lines that start from the armpit and run down the full length of the blouse. Plus, the piece is armless with an invisible zipper.

The bottom of this set is a Dirndl skirt, which is also one of the major highlights of this piece. It may probably be the reason why the set is named after it. Dirndl skirts are usually characterised by their high waist and deep pleat and these attributes are also shared by set. To introduce the high waist, the designer inputted a waistband which can be found at the mid-waist area. The deep and wide pleat can be seen falling below the knee in drapes and this automatically checks the skirt as a midi skirt. It also has a concealed zipper, similar to the one on the blouse.

Though the skirt is an exact depiction of what a Dirndl skirt used to be, it also has a unique design that can be found right after the waistband. It is a slanted asymmetric cutting with a covered button that creates an illusion of a second layer to the skirt.

The set is an intelligent introduction to the collection. The unique designs are stand-up worthy and the attention to detail is impeccable. However, the designer could consider adding a cap sleeve to the blouse. It will help to elevate the overall look of the attire.

The two-piece can be worn for all types of occasions because of its ability to function separately. This means that depending on the way you style it, you can wear it for almost anything. For instance, that blouse can with different types of pants like cargo or culottes and different types of skirts like pencil skirts, ballons skirts, etc.

Another dress, named Dian, is a brightly coloured outfit that depicts spring. A whole lot of design combinations and fabrics went into creating this simple but classy wear. With the name Dian, you must have already guessed that the dress was created to give you a ray of sunshine to your beholders. To achieve such vibrancy through this piece, the designer used a mixture of sun-flowered Elastane fabric and Crepe to craft the attire. Some of the colours found on these materials are royal yellow, white, black, etc.

Dess Dian is a midi gown with several attributes such as a flap collar, cold shoulder, asymmetric flap, Trachten flare and a coil zipper.

The collared off-shoulder is one of the peculiar features of this dress. The most interesting part of this attribute is that the designer used it to kill two birds at the same time! If you take a close look at the image, you will notice the absence of a sleeve. At first look, the flap collar attached to the off-shoulder or cold shoulder seems like it’s a sleeve when it actually is not. The designer brilliantly created a slit at the front and back of the collar to make it seem as though it is a cap sleeve.

The next characteristic of the gown is an asymmetric slant. Before the slant was created, a royal yellow crepe was introduced into the front of the design from the shoulder line and ends at the hip area. At that spot, the asymmetric flap was included using the crepe. Liking it to the first dress of the collection, the asymmetric flap also created an illusion of a second layer, almost like dresses with steps.

The bottom half of the dress is flared, it can be correlated to the dirndl skirt of the first dress or a Trachtenen skirt. This is because they all have deep and wide pleats which is a type of flare that women love. The last element of this piece is the coil zipper, which is included for wearability.

The gross appearance of the dress is laudable but, a slight reduction to the features of the dress can be done, especially with the asymmetric flap. It seemed like an unnecessary addition, which can be remedied by turning it into a different style that would best fit into the attire.