If you live in or near Ja-ela, or even visit occasionally, chances are that you may have walked into the bright and shiny new K-Zone. Which is how I found myself wandering the pleasantly uncrowded space recently, while visiting family. It has all the usual popular branded stores, but one of them caught my eye – possibly because it was previously unheard of, and also because of the snazzy look and feel of the branding. Ah the lure of bright lights! I just had to go there.
The store is very large, taking up nearly half of the second floor of Kzone. On inquiry, it was discovered that Splash is the largest fashion brand in the Middle East (www.splashfashions.com), and that this was its first store in Sri Lanka, another venture by Softlogic. Apparently they are soon to open in Colombo and Kandy too.
It is beautifully laid out, and uncluttered, so there’s space to walk about and see everything at a glance. And everything was worth seeing. The clothes are all quite stylish- clean cuts and understated elegance. What’s nice about a big brand is that they cover the whole range of clothing requirements. Splash has clearly segregated sections for all the main clothes groups (hey, fashion is like nutrition- a good wardrobe must cover all the main groups!)- party wear, casual wear, nightwear, lingerie and a great selection of denims. So if an outfit straight out of a fashion magazine is what you are looking for, you could shop the entire look here. Well, minus shoes. Special note to be made of the really cute pajamas, and sexy lingerie, which aren’t often found in most places.
I also got quite excited by the fact that their clothes hangers carry the size of the respective item. A standard practice overseas I guess, but almost non-existent in SL. So no hunching over and turning clothes inside out to look for the size. This means you don’t need to bug the staff each time you want something in your size either (although they are helpful enough).
Now that I’ve mentioned the positives, I need to mention the downside. Which is the price. Everything here is expensive, by local standards. For example, a simple cotton pajama bottom was over Rs.2000 and the coordinating top was over Rs.1000, making the entire set over 3000 bucks. And these were some of the lower priced stuff. There was a 40% off sale in store, which meant I could afford just one carefully selected item. The rest I just looked at and sighed. Clearly meant for the higher spenders- but if this is you, then this is a great store to check out!
For the rest, there are some cool t-shirts with slogans for Rs.990.
