Svaha Apparel has set out to change the face of women’s and children’s apparel. They are confronting gender stereotypes with bright, fun clothes to allow kids’ imaginations to soar. They have also created fun dresses to prove that women who love Science & Technology can still be feminine & stylish! Founders Jaya Iyer and Eva Everett backed by two very successful kickstarter campaigns have created an entire line of apparel with geeks in mind! In their mission statement they talk about how they want to show everyone that gender stereotypes are completely outdated. “We want to teach kids that it’s okay to like anything they want. We want to prove that STEM concepts are amazingly cool and completely accessible to everyone! We want to unapologetically celebrate femininity and the awesomeness of women in STEM!”
We talked with Co-Founder Eva abput how this all came about. “To give you the background behind our brand, Jaya and I met when we worked together at ThinkGeek. She was the head of Apparel and I was the head of Customer Experience. Jaya came up with the idea for the company after her aspiring astronaut daughter wanted a space-themed t-shirt and she was unable to find one for her in the girls’ section. She started thinking about the lack of STEM-themed options for girls and decided to do something about it. Our line set out to defy gender stereotypes and show kids that anything is accessible to them. We got our initial funding through a successful Kickstarter campaign. We started off as a children’s clothing company, then expanded to adults. We were getting lots of requests from women who wanted our prints for themselves. This was personal to me since I actually started off in molecular biology and use to get annoyed when people would tell me I didn’t “look like a scientist”. We wanted to show women that you can be feminine and belong in STEAM fields. Our biggest claim to fame is that ALL of our dresses and skirts have pockets. This was an absolute requirement for us, as we feel like pockets give you freedom. We funded our adults’ line with another wildly successful Kickstarter campaign and it ended up going viral on us. Since then, Svaha has been rapidly growing as people find out who we are and what we’re doing. We’ve managed to grow the most fantastic group of customers and brand loyalists ever. We get inundated with praise and with design ideas. At this point, almost all of our designs come from input from our awesome customers! It’s been an amazing journey so far and we are really proud of how well our message has resonated with our customers and for our impact on the apparel industry. Getting to make these clothes is a dream come true and we can’t wait to see where the future takes us!”
We took their products and put them to the geek test! We had cosplayers and fellow geeks, Belle, Jade and Dylan, take their products out for a spin!
AVOGADRO’S NUMBER UNISEX ADULTS T-SHIRT
A “mole” is a scientific unit used in chemistry for measuring large quantities of small things – one mole of any substance is defined as having a ginormous 6.022 × 1023 of molecules or atoms! This numerical value had its genesis in the work of 19th century scientist Amedeo Avogadro. You can see where this is going: avocados + kitchen chemistry = guacamole.
What we love about it: The Avogadro shirt is thick and soft! The print is clear and bright! It is a super comfortable t-shirt. Would look great on anyone. Absolutely meets our quality standards! It paired perfectly with model Dylan’s everyday attire.
INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION GLOW-IN-THE-DARK DRESS
This dress is inspired by the International Space Station. It is a three-quarter length sleeve v-neck. Our model, Jade, rolled up the sleeves on this dress, paired the dress with a pair of flats and a belt at her waist.
What we love about it: IT GLOWS IN THE DARK! That is just fun and we love it! The star pattern is not overwhelming and the Space Station design at the bottom corner is perfect. This dress would probably look really cute with a black blazer or a black sweater over it!
COBOL PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE FIT & FLARE DRESS
The COBOL Programming dress is made in honor of Rear Admiral Grace Hopper for her pioneering work in (among other things) the creation of the eponymous computer programming language in 1959, which is still widely used today. It is a three-quarter length sleeve dress features a scooped V neckline and a skirt with pockets.
What we love about it: We really love the design and the colors of this dress. And obviously we love the pockets! But the colors of this dress is what really catches our attention. The blues give it a casual and relaxed feel. We loved how model, Belle, rolled up the sleeves on this dress and paired it with a pair of sandals! We can absolutely see ourselves wearing this outfit with a denim jacket on a spring day.
Overall:
We love how clever their designs are! We love the impact that this brand is trying to make on both gender roles and fashion in general! We applaud their Eco friendly efforts and hope to see a lot more from them in the future! It is really exciting to see clothing that celebrates the fun and geeky sides of science and clothing that is available for every member of the science community and every member of the family. The fact that most of these items are available up to a 5X is really wonderful!
Sizing can be both a blessing and a curse depending on how you are used to ordering clothes. The wonderful thing about these garments is that they feel like they are very gender fluid when it comes to sizing. Which is great for getting a better fit, but can be confusing when it comes to ordering your size. With the dresses we noticed that they tend to run longer than most women’s fit and flare dresses and that it ran a little bigger in the hips than traditional women’s dresses. We recommend to check the size chart before ordering, and to order off the size chart. .
The organic cotton is very soft and we absolutely love that. But keep in mind that since the cotton is not treated with chemicals to prevent shrinking, it can shrink with high heat. Be sure to follow the washing instructions that come with each garment.
Overall we were really excited about this line!
I am a really big fan of the silhouette and style of the dresses. Pockets are a major plus! The fabric has a good stretch. It would be nice to also have a more flowy fabric to accentuate the dress”. – Jade
I felt very comfortable wearing the dress, though it was a bit long for my height. The feel of the fabric was nice and what the pattern represented gave me a sense of pride at the accomplishments of so many women before me. – Belle
You can check out more from Svaha Apparel by following them on social media or by visiting their website https://svahausa.com/
