How a commission runs, from the first message to the day it is worn.
What a commission actually looks like, told by the women who wore them.
She never came to Lagos. Measurements came from her phone, the fittings happened on video calls on Sunday afternoons, and the gown was waiting in Enugu a week before the wedding.
She asked for something nobody at the table would recognise. The illusion plunge was lowered twice at fittings, and the sweep train was shortened so she could dance.
The family chose red. She wanted to be in it without disappearing into it, so the beadwork follows her, not a repeat, and the fringe was set to fall at the shoulder.
Named, with the specific thing they are praising.
I sent three photographs from my sister’s flat in Manchester and the gown fit at the first fitting in Lagos. I had prepared myself for alterations that never came.
Four of us wore aso-ebi and mine was the one people asked about. That is the whole point and they understood it without my saying so.
They told me my date was too close for what I wanted, and offered something simpler instead of taking the deposit. I came back the following year for the wedding gown.
The measurement tool flagged my waist as uncertain and a fitter went through it with me on a call. That honesty is why I trusted the rest of it.
Answers can be wrong; the team confirms prices and dates. How this works