By Valerie Chapman
It?s a nightmarish scenario familiar for almost every LDS girl. Scouring the mall for the perfect dress for a formal event, not finding anything modest or appropriate to wear, and feeling the pressure of the deadline for the big event drawing nearer. As time passes, each less-than-perfect dress is furiously heaved onto the floor.
Michaella Lawson, a graduate in sociology from BYU, knew this situation all too well. After many frustrating attempts to find modest dresses for special occasions, she decided to take matters into her own hands. She and her husband Brad created MikaRose, a modest clothing company specializing in modest dresses for young adult women.
?It seems that currently the only solutions available for modest women are to wear t-shirts underneath or cardigans over dresses to provide the desired amount of coverage,? Brad Lawson said. ?Otherwise the only other alternative is to opt for a skirt and a top. We wanted to fill a void by creating our own line of dresses that are already modest and elegant with no alterations required.?
The Lawsons started work on MikaRose about a year ago, and launched the company?s Web site last Wednesday. Since its opening, the site has had about 100 hits a day.
?Our goal is to provide dresses for women looking to be sassy, feminine and fun,? Lawson said. ?We want to bring back the classy, Audrey Hepburn look.?
The 2005 collection started with three dresses to test the market. The company is planning to release six new dresses in February. Lawson said the focus of the company is on casual as well as formal dresses appropriate for special occasions such as company events and theater attendance.
?They are very versatile pieces,? Lawson said. ?You can change the look of the dress with different accessories, and make one dress work for several kinds of occasions.?
Lawson and her husband design the dresses together, but Lawson said her husband, an electrical engineering student at BYU, does most of the designing.
The husband and wife team create the designs, then send them off to a local seamstress who manufactures the dresses. The prices range from $60 to $80, but Lawson said she hopes to eventually have the manufacturing done out of the country, which will lower the price.
Ashley Kelshaw, a dental hygiene student at UVSC, recently bought the black Elegant Sheath dress from MikaRose. She said she is impressed with the quality of the dress she bought.
?I really love the dress,? Kelshaw said. ?It fits really well. It?s comfortable, modest and attractive, and it doesn?t look like a frumpy old-lady dress.?
Kelshaw said she happened upon the site while surfing the Internet one night. She thought the dresses were cute and decided to purchase one. Though she was initially nervous about buying the dress online, Kelshaw used the sizing chart on the Web site and said it worked perfectly.
MikaRose hopes others will have as much success with purchasing online. In an effort to gain more customer interest, MikaRose is inviting the community to get involved in the design process.
Women can send the company a picture of an immodest dress they would like to see made modest. The Lawsons will pick five of these dresses to design and the women who submitted the dresses will get them for free. Those five dresses will also be added to the line for public purchase.
The 2005 dress collection can be viewed and purchased at www.mikarose.com. New dress designs can be submitted on the Web site or mailed to 223 W. Bulldog Ave. #113, Provo, UT, 84604.