A vibrant red shop, catching the attention of motorists, D’divas, Colombo’s latest fashion store opened at Braybrooke Street recently. Mostly marketing its own label D’divas, the store promises just one to about six pieces from each design it creates.
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| Dinesh Watawana (centre) and wife Michelle (to his right) at the opening of D’divas |
Local fashion retailing is mostly about mass-produced designs with export rejects ending up at retail shops or made up mostly of imports from China or Thailand. D’divas joins a rare few fashion studios offering limited-edition designs, says the label’s creator Dinesh Watawana who adds that despite being a limited-edition collection, the prices are within what women pay for good mass-produced clothes.
D’divas which has its own design and production studio is a special project of the integrated communications agency The 7th Frontier, the creators of eco resort KumbukRiver.
D’divas brings another important facet to the fashion world: its designs are practical and not limited to the ramp. “We have set out to create a store for the modern woman who aspires to give a lift to her day-to- day life, from office to casual and evening wear. Among eye-catching designer-wear you also find simple clothes women look for,” Watawana says.
So what does a discerning woman get for perhaps a few rupees more than mass-market produce and a giant slice off the price tag of limited-edition wear? Clothes which turn each woman into a diva in her own right, and a chance to support a social revolution off the beaten-track says the design head.
“D’divas is intended to support our conservation and development activities through KumbukRiver which itself has been conceptualized to put Sri Lanka on the global map of tourism, propagating a far-sighted rural development and conservation model,” Watawana says. |
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