Arts
Everything for the modern woman
Founder of the clothing brand ABSOLUTE, Christeen Silva surprisingly did not come from a fashion background but instead one of finance and economics. Heading to the competitive industry of fashion a little later than her peers proved to be an advantage for Christeen as she was able to identify the gap in the market by stripping it down completely to its bare essentials.
“I started a career in investments and after three years, I joined MAS and that is how I came into textiles and materials where I learnt a lot. That is how I got into the industry. When it comes to the brand, that is a completely different story,” Christeen laughs as she tells us how ABSOLUTE began.
Whenever she had wanted a basic t-shirt or something simple that mirrored her minimalistic style, Christeen always found it difficult to find a retail outlet locally. She would have to call 10 different people asking where she could get something plain and even they were not too sure of the availability of such products. “There are so many places that have very fashionable and extravagant items but I wanted to create a central place where people could go and find what they are looking for at any time of the year.”
“ What we currently do is women’s essentials. They are your timeless pieces, but with a modern twist. We are marketing the core basics for any woman’s closet but we have adapted our own style into it to make it ours,” Christeen says emphasizing that they are a brand for the modern woman–a brand attempting to be the one-stop store that has all your basic essential wear needs covered.
From t-shirts to camis, cardigans, shift dresses and more; the ABSOLUTE line is minimal. ABSOLUTE launched their capsule collection that expanded their style scope into the Summer Essentials range during an Avurudu pop-up last weekend at the Design Collective Store in Kirulapone.
Hesitant at first to launch this collection as they were known for their cotton basics, Christeen explains the concept revolves roud that we are in Sri Lanka and for us, summer is all year around. “I love my cotton basics but as Sri Lankans, we really look for comfortable clothing apart from maybe for a three-hour formal event. The whole idea behind the collection was to create summer essentials that can easily be converted to day-to-day wear,” she says.
The capsule collection includes linen-wear with comfortable summer dresses, shifts, pants, tops, loungewear, kaftans and robes in muted pastel colours with a few bold yellows thrown into the mix.
As a brand, ABSOLUTE promotes slow-fashion with quality being their top priority. They hope to make their customers more conscious of their buying decisions, as opposed to a culture of impulse buying where an outfit rarely gets worn after it is bought. Further, they are on a mission to lessen their carbon footprint by using sustainable materials and staying away from polyester and viscose; releasing collections slowly and with limited pieces; aligning themselves with manufacturers with the same mindset and more.
Check out ABSOLUTE on their Instagram page @absolutebasics and their latest collection at the Design Collective Store located down Stratford Avenue.