Solae is an independent womenswear label, designed by Dronika in Indore. Every piece is hers — patterned, cut and finished by hand, in short runs — made for the nights you will want to remember, because there is a moment just before you leave, when you catch your reflection and something settles, when you stand a little differently and know that you are ready. That is the moment Solae is made for.
Every piece passes through someone’s hands
Nothing here is pulled off a shelf. A dress only begins once you have chosen it, and the embellishment is set one piece at a time, by someone sitting with it in their lap, taking as long as it takes.
Which means the beading on your dress will not fall exactly where it falls on anyone else’s. We used to worry about that. Now we think it is the loveliest part of it — proof that a person made this, with their hands, and that they made it for you and not for everyone.
For the nights that stay with you
Nobody buys a dress like this casually.
It is bought for an engagement, a birthday, a dinner you have been thinking about all week. And afterwards it becomes part of how you remember that night — the photographs, the way you felt walking in, a compliment from someone whose opinion you did not expect to matter quite so much.
We think about that more than you might imagine, while we are making them.
Few of each, and that is deliberate
We work in short runs by choice. A few colours at a time, and when something sells through, it sells through.
If a piece is nearly right but not quite — a little longer, a colour we have not made yet — just ask. Most of what leaves here has been changed for someone.
We would rather make fewer things, and have you love one of them for years.
— Dronika