Svaha Clothing Review: STEM and Arts Dresses

One of the joys of being an educator is that every day, you have an audience for fashion choices — and you can really go wild with it! Given this, I knew eventually I would write a Svaha clothing review, as that company is famous for its deliciously geeky STEM and arts-themed dresses — so here it is!

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STEM and Arts Dresses with Pockets

Thanks to the wonders of online ad targeting, once I started teaching, I began to see photos of Svaha USA clothing pop up on my feed whenever I opened the Internet. I became intrigued: Ms. Frizzle-style, education-themed dresses with pockets? That sounds good!

A Woman-Owned Clothing Company

I began to do a big more sleuthing. It turns out that Svaha was founded in 2015 by a woman named Jaya (we loved woman-owned companies!) who moved from India to Iowa, and saw a glaring need for STEM-themed clothes for girls in simple, machine-washable styles — with pockets.

What started as a kids-only clothing company soon grew into offering adult sizes, too, as grown women like myself clamored for the designs. Molecules, mathematical symbols, animals, plants, planets, dragons, and more!

You can imagine my delight when Svaha reached out to me last month asking if I’d like two dresses for review. When I told them that I’d recently become a librarian after nearly two decades as a classroom teacher, the company picked two book-themed dresses to send!

Below is a close-up of the print of one of the dresses they sent, with the pockets displayed. I appreciate the animals and planets scattered amid the stacks, emphasizing that we librarians share more than books with the world.

Photographing these dresses was an adventure. When my kindly photographer friend and I tried to take pictures in the local library, I actually ended up blending in completely with the stacks of books! So we took the photo shoot outside, and he forced me to pose with this somewhat bizarre mural…

Review of Svaha Dresses

So, how are the Svaha dresses? Well first and foremost, I think they look very cool, and I’m psyched to wear them to work when school starts again in September! The pockets are also seriously deep, so they’ll hold many things that standard ones wouldn’t, and the pull-over style means no zippers or buttons to mess with.

Second, be aware that their 100% cotton fabric is kind of like a classic T-shirt, meaning it doesn’t have a huge amount of stretch to it, but does run a little big. Do your sizing and belt-wearing accordingly. I’m a size 6ish, and am wearing a “Small” in both dresses pictured here.

Finally, the different Svaha styles are very interesting. Above, you can see their famous full-twirl skirt. It’s wide and wonderful! Below is their more sheath dress, A-line style, which I added a belt to.

Different styles will match different body types best, so poke around to see which one fits you most. For example, some have a waist seam (as with the one pictured above) while others don’t (as with the one seen below). What’s nice is the dresses are pre-shrunk, and machine washable.

Other Great Companies for Teacher Dresses:

If you’re looking for other options for machine-washable, versatile teacher dresses with fun prints, I highly recommend my friend Rebecca’s company, Princess Awesome. Their dresses are stretchier and a little thicker than Svaha, so it just depends what kind of textiles you like best.

The other woman-owned brand I swear by for wearing every day to school is my friend Sarah’s company, Leota New York for dresses. They have more abstract designs than explicitly STEM and arts ones, but they’re super stretchy and thin but opaque, so I find myself reaching for them each morning!

Svaha Clothing Review, in Sum

So what about you? If you’ve tried Svaha dresses, what has your experience been like? If you haven’t tried them, what questions or thoughts do you have after reading this Svaha clothing review? Do share!