The date is the brief
A gown that is beautiful on Sunday and needed on Saturday has failed. We quote a delivery date in writing and we would rather refuse work than miss it.
About the atelier
A small workroom with a long memory.
Adunni Atelier has cut for Lagos families since 2014. We are eleven people in one room in Victoria Island, and we keep every client’s measurements on file, which is why a second commission is quicker than the first.
How it started
One machine, one cutting table, one bride.
Adunni Bakare started this atelier with a single industrial machine and a commission for a friend’s introduction ceremony. The brief was familiar to anyone who has ordered clothes in Nigeria: a date that could not move, cloth bought in a hurry and three previous tailors who had all promised Thursday.
What grew out of it is a deliberately small house. We cap the number of commissions we take each month, because the alternative is the thing every client has already lived through: a rushed final fitting, a hem pinned in the car and a promise that it will be ready by morning.
Everything here follows from that. Written schedules. Two fittings, not one. An honest answer about your cloth before it is cut, even when the honest answer costs us the order.
2014The year the first machine was bought
11People sharing one workroom
24Measurements taken per client
2Working fittings in every commission
What we hold to
Three rules the workroom runs on.
They are unglamorous, and they are the reason clients come back for a second and third piece.
Test on cheap cloth
Structured pieces get a calico toile before your lace is touched. It adds two days and it has saved a great many yards of expensive fabric.
Say the difficult thing early
If your fabric will not hold the shape, or your timeline is not real, you hear it at the consultation. Not at the second fitting, when it is your problem too.
The hands
Who will be holding the pins.
You meet at least one of these three at every fitting, and the same person sees your piece through from cutting to hand-over.
Adunni Bakare
Founder and head cutterTrained in Abeokuta and then for six years in a bridal workroom in Surulere. Adunni cuts every bridal and occasion pattern in the house and takes every first consultation herself.
The workroom
Everything is made here, on this floor.
No part of a commission is sent out to a second workshop. The cutting, sewing, embroidery, beadwork and pressing all happen in one room in Victoria Island, which is the only reason we can promise a fitting on Tuesday and mean it.
You are welcome to see it. Ask at your consultation and someone will walk you through the back of the studio.
Client notes
In their words.
Illustrative notes from the kinds of commission this atelier takes on. Replace them with your own as your orders are delivered.
They told me on day one that the lace I brought would not hold the shape I wanted, and offered two alternatives. I was annoyed for a week and grateful on the day.
Ngozi A.Introduction ceremony, Lekki
The measuring room
Come and be measured.
Consultations are free, last forty-five minutes and commit you to nothing at all.