I first found Kemi Telford on Insta (I think maybe through Erica again lol) and fell in love with her fun, bold dresses. If you’re not familiar with the woman and the brand, Kemi Telford is a Nigerian woman, a former lawyer, who is now living her dream by designing gorgeous dresses for women in the UK. Her dresses are made in the UK, India, and China, and she is mindful of her production practices, including reducing waste and giving to charity (see her values here). Many of her dresses are a limited-run production and once she sells out, she’s out.
She has a ton of really fun, colorful dresses in super unique patterns. But you know me, I love my black and I love my stripes lol. So it was a pretty no-brainer when I saw this Ebunoluwa stripe cotton dress, plus LOOK AT THE PUFFY SLEEVES! I also liked that this was one of her shorter dresses since I’m more of a fan of midi dresses than maxi ones. Here is Kemi modeling this dress in her Insta (I love that she wears all her dresses with sneakers):
And here I am making this dress my own way in the time of corona lol. I’m wearing the accompanying sash as a bow in my hair after being inspired by Behida Dolic. I felt very anime and quite cute in this outfit lol but I didn’t actually go out to the post office with it in my hair.
As for the dress itself, it’s made in India from hand-loomed cotton. I’ve only tried an ace & jig dress once before (the review of that here), and that’s what this dress reminded me of. The fabric has a bit of stiff texture that works so well in a dress like this because it adds poof (and keeps those sleeves puffy, just how I like ‘em). There are some tiny imperfections in the material but I think it adds character (since it’s hand-made after all). I ordered this in a small and it fits perfectly (I don’t need the sash to cinch in the waist though that’s always an option if the dress is a tad too large). There’s a side-zip for easy in and out. It says to hand wash this dress but I just machine washed it on cold with my linen dresses and hung dry. It worked out fine.
Ebunoluwa means “God’s gift” in the Yoruba language, and though I wouldn’t go so far as to call this God’s gift I would say it’s a pretty dang good dress. For 100 pounds (or about $130) I think it’s a very fair price (since ace & jig sells their dresses in the $300 range). I can’t wait to keep styling this dress in different ways and transition it to fall/winter weather). This is a very lovely dress made by a lovely woman and I highly recommend checking her stuff out!