Luiza Sadykova was 6 years old when she cross-stitched her first piece of embroidery. It was also around then that she first listened to her mother read “Little Women” to her and her sister, Julia Saidova, at their home in Uzbekistan. Even worlds away, they felt a deep affinity with the March sisters of Louisa May Alcott’s beloved novel.
Growing up in Uzbekistan, the family lived modestly. The girls watched their mother hand-sew their dresses and hand-knit their cardigans, while their grandmother sewed their nightgowns and taught them to bake. These influences guided them as they grew up and started their own families. As Sadykova sewed clothes for her own daughters, she dreamed of one day selling her handiwork.
In “Little Women,” the March sisters find creative ways to reuse their possessions, taking what they have and turning them into new treasures. Meg remakes her dresses to breathe new life into them, and Jo reuses props in the attic to stage the plays born from her fertile mind.
Little Women Atelier embodies these values in their slow fashion philosophy, “a desire to reduce consumption and not to follow trends,” Sadykova explained. Rather than setting a strict seasonal schedule for releasing new collections, they wait to design pieces “that truly connect with our vision,” and each piece is made to order—and to be reworn again and again.
Today, they have five lines of linen dresses, made with linen sourced from European flax-growing areas and named for each of the March sisters and their mother: Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy, and Marmee. Saidova designs all the dresses, gathering inspiration from their namesakes’ character traits, film versions of the novel, historical fashion magazines, and movies set in Victorian and Edwardian times. “Julia takes notes on the details she likes,” explained Sadykova. “Over time, all the accumulated materials form a picture.”
Sadykova’s favorites are the Meg and Beth dresses. “Meg embodies a feminine and romantic nature, so we incorporated a latticework detail on her sleeves that resembles a lattice pie crust.” For Beth, a true homebody and domestic angel, “we needed something cozy,” so they devised a waffle-like stitch pattern. “Such delicious names!” Sadykova laughed.
The sleeve details are the most complicated and are sewn separately by hand first by their team of seamstresses. After the sleeves have been made, the rest of the dress comes together, and the finished dress is left to hang overnight to give the linen time to settle. Then they can adjust and sew the hem. Their mother heads production, and the covered linen buttons are made “using a special machine operated by our dad,” Sadykova said. “He cuts each circle himself from linen leftovers.” From start to finish, the process involves six pairs of hands and four machines. “In a day, we can sew three to four dresses. However, we have a long list of orders, and our customers patiently wait for up to eight weeks,” Sadykova said.
The dresses are intended to be worn in everyday life: “Even me, I wear my dresses wherever I need to go, like a doctor’s appointment or to the park with my girls. I get so many compliments.”
Pinafores, blouses, coats, and nightgowns round out their offerings, and recently, their brother designed a collection for men. Most of their clients come from the United States, Canada, and Europe.
For the last year and a half, Sadykova has lived with her young family near Seattle, Washington, while the rest of the family lives in Kazakhstan. “We are far apart but we share a deep bond,” Sadykova said. “Through this little miracle that we’ve created, I feel near them.”
