eShakti

[cahn]

So lately I have discovered and become somewhat addicted to eShakti. It's a mail-order company specializing in customized women's clothing (ETA: though they also have standard sizes!). They will customize sleeve length, length, and often neckline, AND make it to your measurements. And -- and this is the reason I found out about them in the first place, and a big reason I've gotten addicted to them -- most of their stuff has POCKETS. Deep and generous pockets!

The customization of sleeve length and length is super awesome for me; LDS clothing norms are that everything you wear has to have sleeves and go down to the knee. There's a bit of fudge factor there: cap/dolman sleeves are usually okay, as is something that's just above the kneecaps, but sleeveless dresses and mid-thigh skirts are Right Out to wear to church, no matter how conservatively it is cut otherwise. (And in general I prefer longer hemlines, because they are more likely to be swishy, and okay, I am a sucker for swishy skirts.)

And have you tried to find a knee-length dress with sleeves recently? Even laying aside the pockets, it's... pretty much entirely impossible. I mean, what everyone actually does is layer, but why shouldn't I be able to actually get a dress the way I want to wear it?

I also have a figure that does not, uh, always play well with standard sizes. After pregnancies, and irrespective of my weight, my waist size has become about three sizes larger than what my hip and bust size would indicate. My legs are short, and the top of my torso (between shoulders and bust) is long, and my natural waist is really high up and looks weird when I wear stuff there. Even with all that, I can often wear standard dresses, but I would definitely not order a standard dress without trying it on first and expect it to fit with any kind of reliability.

I have so far ordered several things from them, and here's my experience:

-I have got a skirt, top, and several dresses from them with my custom measurements:

-The dresses have almost all fit perfectly. The ones with lower necklines have fit me beautifully and looked awesome and flattered me and were basically amazing. (Except for one, which was extremely ugly and which I should have known better than to order; I'd liked an earlier version of the dress and hoped that the later version would look like the earlier version instead of like its picture. It did not.) The ones with higher necklines have not fit because of the long distance between shoulders and bust, although they've added that as a new measurement and I haven't tried it yet.

-The skirt fit my waist, but because my natural waist is so high, I like to wear my skirts below my natural waist, so I returned it. (I have since ordered non-custom skirts with my "wearing waist" measurement and at much shorter lengths than I actually want, and this has worked out way better.)

-The top was made to my custom measurements and was way, way too big. It looks like they saw my waist measurement and ignored everything else, which is weird because it was a flowy sort of top so didn't really need an accurate waist measurement. If I had to do it again I'd buy one of the premade sizes for tops.

-I've seen reviews online that counsel to buy eShakti dresses with a little stretch or elastic to them; they are a little more forgiving. I plan to stick to that for the most part. The one non-stretch dress I did get actually fit me quite well, though.

-It's hard for me to figure out what different sleeve/neckline options will look like. There's at least one dress I had to return that didn't work with the neckline it had but which I would have adored in a different neckline (but didn't realize until I actually saw it on me), and a couple more that I kept but would in retrospect have looked better with slightly different sleeve options, e.g., one dress I have looks strangely unbalanced with 3/4 sleeves but looks fantastic when I fold up the sleeves to elbow length (which is what I usually do). (It's weird to me that such a small change makes a difference, but it does.)

-In any case, it's definitely a plus if you already know the kinds of clothes that look good on you.

-They've definitely got a vintage/retro vibe. Which is not really my style, so I do have to go through a lot of their stuff to find things that I like.

-Their fabric is relatively heavy. "Midweight" is not really suitable for hot weather. ("Lightweight" is lightweight and awesome for summer.) They do feel very sturdy although I haven't had them for long enough to see how they hold up.

-Their knit cotton/spandex dresses are really comfortable. I tried wearing one to bed, it was so comfortable, but D thought I was weird. …Okay, I guess it was weird.

-Some of the zippers stick. The knit dresses pull over the head anyway, so it doesn't matter so much. I got one zip-up dress that I used as a nursing summer coverup, where the zipper (used multiple times every time I used the dress) just failed, ugh. So, uh, don't get the zip-up dresses.

-Don't order stuff at full price, ever (well, I guess, unless it's something you're really afraid of them running out of). They have sales basically every week or so, as far as I can tell.

-On the other hand, if you see something you like and it's at a good price, get it quickly, because things can go out of stock pretty quickly.

-On the third hand, things do go back into stock, especially seasonally, and sometimes after a week or so, especially classic-looking dresses (the really funky ones, not so much).

-ALMOST all their stuff has pockets, but not all of it. Read closely; it will say if it has pockets. If it is not explicitly mentioned, it probably doesn't (as I learned, wah).

-Not useful to most of you, but their surplice-with-button-snap cotton/spandex dresses make fantastic nursing dresses, and with sales/coupons are cheaper than the cheapest nursing dresses with pockets I could find online, and I'll wear mine even after I stop nursing. :)

-In general, if you're thinking of ordering from them for the first time I'd counsel reading several online reviews, both good and bad, to get more of an idea of what to look out for.

-I'm not sure I would look at this as a go-to place to get really nice dresses (though they do sell what look like nice party/formal dresses). But for casual-ish dresses, I really really like them.

-The company is based in India, but the returns are in the US, so that's nice. They're working on prepaid returns, but I haven't seen this yet — which would be a big plus.

I do have one of those deals where I can give you $40 off a purchase of $70 or more (and I then get the same deal), so if you would like that, email/message me and I'll set you up :) But please do not feel AT ALL compelled to do this. It's not why I wrote this post, and eShakti often has First-Time Customer bargains, no third party necessary, that are about as good. (I don't know if they stack. I assume not.)

Comments

[okrablossom]

Thank you! I think this makes me realize that I don't kmow enough about my own measurements, or what my ideal measurements in clothing would be, to order from them.

[cahn]

I should have said that they do have standard sizes and you can totally order those! But they do specialize in custom sizing for those of us who have nonstandard bodies :)

I didn't know anything about my own measurements either. I got a measuring tape and took half an hour to take all the measurements, even the ones where they said that a second person should do it for best results, and double-checked with a couple of places where I know what size I wear (e.g., Eddie Bauer jeans) and it seems to have come out okay.

[isis]

Psst, your link is relative rather than absolute. (Easy to fix on my end but I figured you'd want to fix it as well.)

Thanks for the discussion of it as I'm looking for an online source of clothes.

[cahn]

Ahhhh, thanks, I have fixed it!

I really do like them, or to be more precise I am now completely addicted to having pockets in my dresses. It took a bit of trial and error at first, though (which is fairly common for me and online clothes shopping).

[sophia_sol]

I just discovered eShakti recently myself! My first order arrived in the mail yesterday. I love that they take your height into account with respect to length, even without paying for custom measurements - so my ankle-length skirt is ACTUALLY ankle-length on me despite me being really tall. And the pockets!!! Your notes about your experiences are helpful, especially that sales are regular enough that one shouldn't ever buy full-price from them.

[cahn]

Oh, YES! Yay height! Isn't it great?! And the pockets are just the best thing ever.

Yeah, I mean, if it's something you really want and stock is low, you might go ahead and get it full price, but otherwise they don't go very long without having some kind of sale. Also, now that you are signed up for them you will probably get regular coupons in the mail :)

[thistleingrey]

ETA *headdesk* Forgot to say: I'm really glad that it works for you generally!

My legs are short, and the top of my torso (between shoulders and bust) is long, and my natural waist is really high up and looks weird when I wear stuff there.

Well, only compared to people of European descent; for a person of Korean (or generally of E but not far NE Asian) descent this is perfectly reasonable. :P My nearest aunt is two inches shorter than I and wears a trouser inseam six or seven inches shorter than I do. The long-waistedness is, near as I can tell, an adaptation for safe childbirth with narrow pelvis--the pelvic arch is plenty high enough that way.

(I am short of torso and long of leg no matter which genetic population one compares me to, but I have the long waist. eShakti and I disagree on a fourth crucial thing, however: shoulder width. After being unable to get either custom-made top over my head at all, I decided it was mean to keep trying. The fabric was nice!)

[cahn]

Huh! My only points of reference here (given that I don't usually discuss inseams with other Koreans) had been my mom and sister, neither of whom have particularly short legs, but they're both relatively tall, and my sister takes after my mom a lot, so it's not exactly like they are independent data points. (...that was a lot of clauses!) I should ask my cousins on my dad's side (who are generally shorter as well).

Yay adaptations for safe childbirth, though. I'd always been a little worried about that, knowing that I had a narrow pelvis (and not knowing about the long-waistedness thing), but it seems to have turned out okay.

When you say shoulder width, do you mean shoulder to shoulder? I thought there was a measurement along those lines? It is true though that I had such bad luck the one time I tried to have a top made, I swore off tops from eShakti. As far as I could tell they did not look at my bust or shoulder measurement, only my waist, and it was all kinds of wrong. I'd be interested in what happened if you ever had a dress made (though of course there's no reason you should).

[thistleingrey]

My mother has several sisters, all of whom have reproduced, so between her and my nearest aunt (who trained originally as a nurse), they'd figured it out for me. :) Plus, occasional commiseration with Chinese American friends during middle/high school and a half-Japanese friend in grad school. (The other unexpected thing, while I'm at it, is thicker ankle bones than the average NW European woman, whatever size the rest of one's body is. "One-size" sock knitting patterns confused me for a long time.)

There is a shoulder measurement, which they ignored, I assume, because the rest of my numbers indicate one thing and my shoulder width indicates another. Seems akin to your observation re: waist measurement, except the other way.

[cahn]

Hm! I don't think I have the thick ankle bones either, although... this makes sense of things my sister has said; I think she has those. Huh.

Yeah, I wonder if it's because their core business isn't tops, so they aren't as good at figuring out measurement discrepancies for tops? I dunno, I don't know anything about how tailoring works. But yeah, the dresses were much better at incorporating the rest of my measurements, for whatever reason.

[metaphortunate]

I have felt hit or miss about their fabrics, but I love their designs!

[cahn]

Yeah, I feel like I've had good luck with their simpler stretchy fabrics (I love their cotton/spandex and casual-ish polyester) and less with the "dressy" kind of fabrics -- I got a jacquard dress that looked really lovely in the picture but in person the fabric seemed kind of cheap.

[umadoshi]

I've never shopped at eShakti, but I keep being tempted, so this post is really useful!

(Also, since I just subscribed to you, this is my "hello!" comment. ^_^)

[cahn]

It took me maybe a year to make the plunge. There was definitely a breaking-in period where I was returning almost everything, but now I think I've gotten the hang of it and I'm totally in love :)

(Hi! :) )

[umadoshi]

I live in Canada, which makes the prospect even more daunting (the shipping would be one thing, but the thought of cross-border returns is dreadful), but I think a couple of my friends have shopped there with reasonable success. And goodness, I do love the look of some of the things on the site.

Ship for me

[(Anonymous)]

Hello! I found a halter dress that I really like, but they don't ship to Singapore. Would you be kind enough to help me ship the dress? I'm willing to pay you for your trouble. Thanks!

Isabella (isabellawright007@hotmail.com)