Client Overview
| Client | Somalicious |
| Industry | Luxury Fashion / E-Commerce |
| Founded by | Soma Islam — Creative Direction: Waliur Rasul Shamuel |
| Location | Gulshan-2, Dhaka, Bangladesh |
| Website | somaliciousofficial.com |
| Stack | WordPress + WooCommerce + Elementor Pro + Custom Widgets + Custom CSS |
| Timeline | 2–3 Weeks |
| Market | Multi-currency: BDT, USD, CAD, AUD |
The Brand
Somalicious is not a conventional fashion brand. Based in Dhaka’s Gulshan, it is a modern South Asian women’s fashion label with a clear brief: clothes must be a radical expression of self-love. Established by Soma Islam and creatively led by designer Waliur Rasul Shamuel, Somalicious is positioned in the high-end market of South Asian fashion – producing hand-made garments in softer, muted and pastel colours that merge the Eastern and Western sensibilities.
The brand’s product offerings are selective and cover a range of categories: Signature Sarees, Couture Gowns, Regal Anarkali, Kaftan Luxe, Cape Silhouettes, Co-Ord Sets, Heritage Shawls, Shalwar Kameez, Designer Kurtis, and Statement Koti – as well as seasonal festival collections for Eid and Boishakh. Priced from the mid-100s to more than 1000 US dollars, Somalicious is a luxury brand.
The tagline – Beauty to the Eyes – is not a slogan. It is the design brief for all the company’s products, including the website. When the client briefed the development team the directive was the same: the site must feel like the premiumness of clothes.
| The client’s design brief was clear and uncompromising: So, it has to be smooth, luxurious and immersive. All choices for the development had to meet this criteria. |
The Brief
Somalicious needed a complete e-commerce website – to be built from scratch – that would serve as an online flagship store for a high-end fashion brand with an international presence. The client had a distinct aesthetic, but no website. Our team had to create everything from scratch, and ensure that every aspect of the site met the design quality that the brand had already set with its product photos and social media content.
The site had to be highly functional. In addition to the product catalogue and e-commerce experience, the site had to accommodate seasonal product launches and their dedicated landing pages, a video commerce area where customers could see the garments in action, wishlist and quick view options, customer accounts with social sign-on, and multiple currencies for an international audience. The navigation needed to organise a large, hierarchical product catalogue in a way that was not too busy or confusing.
Above all, the site had to be smooth. Not just functional, but experientially smooth, like walking into a physical boutique. It had to be all about the product at all times, and the interface had to support it.
The Challenges
Designing for Luxury — Not Just for Commerce
Luxury e-commerce is not like other e-commerce. In traditional e-commerce, the goal is to speed the transaction: remove barriers, make the sale. In luxury, the customer experience is the product. When a customer is looking at a $1,500 dress, she is not rushing. She is looking, touching, considering. The design must slow her down at times and guide her along at others – but not be salesy.
Too much visual noise and the product appears cheap. Too much restraint and the site feels empty. Navigating that balance required design decisions that went far beyond layout — into typography, whitespace, motion, color temperature, and the emotional rhythm of the browsing experience.
A Complex Product Catalogue Requiring Intuitive Navigation
Somalicious stocks clothing in three different style categories – Ethnic, Layers, and Ready to Wear – as well as a range of seasonal festivals. To organise this structure in a menu system that a new user could instantly comprehend, without confusion and without needing to click through, we had to develop a custom mega menu, rather than a simple drop-down. It was a matter of making complex seem simple.
Custom Features Beyond Standard WooCommerce
The client’s desired features – the Watch and Buy video commerce section, a stylised slide-in shopping cart, a custom wishlist, quick view overlays and an editorially managed collection landing page system – were all beyond the standard features of WooCommerce and Elementor. Each needed to be created as a custom widget or with custom CSS and JavaScript to provide the user experience needed for a luxury brand.
Multi-Currency International Commerce
Somalicious has customers in Bangladesh, the US, Canada and Australia. The site required a way to switch the currency (BDT, USD, CAD, AUD) seamlessly and safely, with product and checkout prices being accurate regardless of the currency chosen.
Performance with Visual Weight
Luxury fashion sites are image-heavy. Editorial images, hover effects, embedded video, product galleries and other interactivity increase page weight. To ensure the site was fast enough to load, especially for mobile customers, the site had to be built with image optimisation, lazy loading and plugin management in mind from the beginning, not afterwards.
Technology Stack
The choice of CMS was WordPress with WooCommerce – not by default, but by design. For a luxury brand like Somalicious that has new collections for each season, needs to be able to edit collection pages, and needs to be able to pop in and update the listings without developer intervention, WordPress offers the flexibility and ease of use required. WooCommerce is used to manage the product details, stock, pricing and orders.
Elementor Pro was the main page builder, allowing for the custom layouts necessary for the homepage, collection landing pages, and editorial content without a completely custom front-end build. But much of the final build was beyond the capabilities of Elementor – custom Elementor widgets were built specifically for this project to handle functionality that cannot be achieved with the standard set of Elementor widgets to the same standard.
The final layer of custom CSS and JavaScript made the e-commerce build a luxury one. Product card transitions, hover states, navigation reveal, the slide-in cart, and the Watch and Buy interaction were all crafted with custom code – because Elementor and WooCommerce have their own built-in styles, and a luxury brand can’t afford to rely on them.
| Technology | Role in the Build |
| WordPress | CMS and content management platform |
| WooCommerce | Product catalogue, cart, checkout, orders |
| Elementor Pro | Custom page layouts and editorial sections |
| Custom Elementor Widgets | Bespoke interactive components developed for this project |
| Custom CSS | Luxury styling, animations, hover states throughout |
| Custom JavaScript | Watch & Buy interaction, slide-in cart, navigation behaviour |
| Multi-Currency Plugin | BDT / USD / CAD / AUD switching across all pages |
| Social Auth Plugin | Facebook and Google account login/registration |
Design Approach — Luxury Comes First
Visual Identity and Color
The Somalicious brand already had a strong identity: a love of gold and cream, editorial-style photography, and less is more. The website translated this to the web. The colour scheme is based on a deep charcoal for the main text and structure, warm gold for headings, accents and interactive elements, and plenty of cream and off-white backgrounds that allow the product photographs to shine through.
No bright CTAs. No distractions that would distract from the clothing. The guiding design principle was that the website should be invisible – only the product should be seen.
Typography
The display headings and editorial text were set in Georgia, a serif typeface that has the history and gravitas demanded by luxury brands, but is not old-fashioned. Sans-serif type was used for body copy, navigation and other functional elements to provide legibility and a contemporary feel at all sizes. The pairing forms a hierarchy that is elegant and legible at any scale.
Layout and Whitespace
Whitespace is a critical part of the design of luxury fashion brands – it shows you that they are not desperate for your money. The Somalicious design has ample space between sections, low density grids in the product catalogue, and strategic padding around product images. Sections breathe. Nothing is jostled. The rhythm of scrolling on the homepage was carefully thought about, with emphasis and release.
Motion and Interaction
All interactive aspects – hover states of the product cards, navigation displays, the slide-out cart, the collection pages – were considered in terms of motion: gentle, slow, certain. There are no snaps or jumps. Easing curves are smooth and deluxe. These things are only noticed when they’re not done right, especially in a luxury scenario.
The Custom Mega Menu
Somalicious has a broad and well-organised product range. To display this in a way that makes sense to a first-time customer, we had to create a mega menu – not a simple drop-down menu, not an Elementor menu.
The mega menu divides the catalogue into three sections – Ethnic, Layers, and Ready to Wear – and a fourth section, Festivals, for seasonal collections. The sections are visually identified and distinct. Each section features neatly presented category links, enabling the customer to see the entire catalogue at a glance from the homepage without even needing to click.
The New In section of the mega menu does even more: it includes a product preview alongside the category links, giving a customer a preview of the latest arrivals in the navigation bar. When the customer hovers over the New In menu, they can see a list of categories and a scrolling preview of the latest products – cutting out several steps in the buying process.
| Mega Menu Section | Categories Included |
| Ethnic | Signature Sarees, Shalwar Kameez, Designer Kurti & Fatuya, Statement Koti |
| Layers | Cape Silhouettes, Heritage Shawls, Classic Panjabi, Three Pieces |
| Ready to Wear | Couture Gowns, Co-Ord Sets / Two Pieces, Kaftan Luxe, Off-Shoulder Edit, Regal Anarkali, Tailored Pants |
| Festivals | Boishakh, Eid Collections (with sub-collections: Guldasta, Afsaneh) |
| New In | Live product preview panel alongside category links |
The mega menu is built 100% with custom CSS and JavaScript, using Elementor’s header builder as a foundation, and overriding its behaviour with custom code to achieve the desired functionality, grouping, and animation. This allows for a navigation system that can manage a complex product catalog, while appearing seamless to the user.
Custom Elementor Widget Development
A number of elements on the Somalicious site could not be achieved using the default Elementor widgets. To avoid a compromise in functionality, custom Elementor widgets were built for this project. These widgets add to the functionality of Elementor, while maintaining full control from the page builder – so the client can update and edit these sections without needing to write code.
Watch and Buy — Video Commerce Widget
The Watch and Buy section is a unique element on the Somalicious website. It’s a horizontal scrolling section of short product videos on the homepage, which link through to the product page. The component was designed to embed the video, display the thumbnail, display the view count, and the product link overlay – all in one easy to manage Elementor component. Upon tapping or clicking a video, a modal appears with the garment in action and an “add to cart” button.
Photos communicate material and colour. Video communicates drape, movement, how a garment hangs on a body – all of which are much more important for the garments Somalicious sells. The Watch and Buy widget offers the best of both worlds: the immersive shopping experience of the physical store, and the convenience of shopping online.
Editorial Collection Landing Page Components
Somalicious’ seasonal collections, such as Eid 2026 and its sub-collections Guldasta (گلدستہ) and Afsaneh (افسانه), Boishakh, and more, each get their own landing page created with editorial layout components rather than product grids. Custom widgets were built to manage the full-width hero with collection branding, a stylised strip of product showcases, and blocks of collection narrative text that enable the brand to differentiate collections and create a different mood for each. These elements can be re-used for subsequent collections without further development.
Slide-In Cart Panel
WooCommerce’s default shopping cart interaction – to redirect to a cart page on add-to-cart – breaks the flow of the browsing experience, which is unacceptable in the luxury market. A bespoke slide-in cart panel was developed and added to the site as an Elementor widget, which opens on add-to-cart and on click of the cart icon, sliding in from the right side of the screen without causing a page refresh. The panel shows the cart items with thumbnails, quantities and subtotal, and includes a checkout button. The panel’s animation and appearance matches the site’s interaction design language.
Quick View Overlay
The quick view feature enables customers to view a product summary (including images, description, size selection, and add to cart) from the product grid. This was built as a custom overlay widget on the product card hover interaction to preserve the aesthetic quality of the site rather than using a plugin-generated modal with default styling. The quick view allows customers to browse multiple items without getting lost in the catalogue.
The Product Page Experience
The product page is an important page on a luxury e-commerce site. It is the final destination, and is a make-or-break moment for the design.
For Somalicious, the product page starts with the image – full width of the viewport, with a gallery for multiple views and zoom. Product names are editorial by nature: The Gatsby Mint Gala. The Empress Heirloom. Aurelia’s Grace. The Bethesda Rose. The typography treatment elevates the individuality of each product rather than treating it as a product code. Price, size, and add-to-cart are there but subtle – used to complement the product rather than overwhelm it.
Product size and variant selections are custom-styled to fit the brand’s style, rather than the default WooCommerce radio buttons and dropdowns. The add-to-cart button opens the slide-in panel rather than navigating to the cart page, so the user remains on the product page and it’s extremely easy to add another piece.
Product pages include a wishlist feature that enables customers to save items for later. This is especially beneficial for higher-end items, where the “buy cycle” is longer – a customer may browse the site several times over a period of days before deciding on a piece at $300 or $1,500.
Collections Architecture
Somalicious does not “launch” products in the traditional e-commerce sense. Each collection is an occasion – it has a name, a personality, a mood and a narrative. The Eid 2016 collection is broken down into two sub-collections: Guldasta (گلدستہ) and Afsaneh (افسانه). Each has its own style, and its own consumer in the Somalicious market.
This is reflected in the site structure. Each collection is given its own page built with the editorial elements mentioned above – to introduce the collection name, its tone and its key products before linking into a product grid. This creates a sense of occasion for each collection that a category page would lack. Customers land on a collection page and experience the collection, not just products.
Along with the collection pages, a traditional WooCommerce shop page offers a filtered view of the site based on the higher level categories of Ethnic, Layers, Ready to Wear, and Festivals. Customers who have a clear idea of what they want can jump straight to Signature Sarees or Couture Gowns without having to experience the editorial content. Both paths co-exist without conflict.
| Collection Type | Page Approach |
| Seasonal Collections (Eid, Boishakh) | Editorial landing page with collection identity, narrative, and featured pieces |
| Sub-Collections (Guldasta, Afsaneh) | Individual editorial pages within the parent collection, each with distinct visual mood |
| Browse by Category | Standard WooCommerce category grid with filtering — Ethnic, Layers, Ready to Wear, Festivals |
| New In | Dedicated category page + live preview in mega menu header panel |
| Exclusive | Curated homepage section featuring limited edition and high-value pieces |
Multi-Currency International Commerce
Somalicious ships to Bangladesh, the United States, Canada and Australia. Customers can select from four currencies (BDT, USD, CAD, AUD) from any screen. The customer’s currency preference is stored in the session, and all prices, cart and checkout totals are in the customer’s currency.
The currency switcher is embedded in the site header in a non-intrusive yet accessible manner. It is hidden from most customers viewing the site in their local currency. For international customers, it is immediately available. The integration was achieved via a multi-currency plugin that was set up to show the right prices for all types of WooCommerce products, including variable products with size and colour variations.
| Currency | Market |
| BDT — Bangladeshi Taka | Bangladesh (primary domestic market) |
| USD — US Dollar | United States |
| CAD — Canadian Dollar | Canada |
| AUD — Australian Dollar | Australia |
User Account System
Somalicious allows customers to create accounts with both email and social logins (Facebook and Google), which is important for mobile shoppers, who constitute a large percentage of the brand’s customers and are more likely to avoid a full registration process. Social login is integrated into the site header sign-in panel and the checkout flow, seamlessly connecting both flows.
The My Account pages allow customers to view their order history, manage addresses, manage their wishlist and update account details. The My Account pages were custom-styled to fit the site’s aesthetic rather than relying on the WooCommerce templates – this is important for keeping the luxury feel alive after the sale, not just while the customer is browsing.
Development Process
The development process was broken down into five phases, with deliverables defined at the end of each phase. This was especially important when dealing with a project with a high degree of custom development – it allowed key architecture and global styles to be locked down before custom widgets and feature layers were added.
| Phase | Scope and Deliverables |
| Phase 1: Architecture & Design System(Day 1–3) | Site architecture mapping, brand color and typography system, Elementor global styles, WooCommerce configuration, multi-currency setup, social auth setup |
| Phase 2: Homepage & Core Templates(Day 4–7) | Homepage layout build, mega menu development, global header and footer, product card design, collection landing page template |
| Phase 3: Custom Widget Development(Day 8–12) | Watch and Buy widget, slide-in cart panel, quick view overlay, editorial collection components, wishlist integration |
| Phase 4: Product & Collection Pages(Day 12–15) | All product pages styled, collection landing pages (Eid 2026: Guldasta, Afsaneh), Boishakh page, category pages, shop grid configuration |
| Phase 5: Optimization & Launch(Day 15–18) | Cross-device testing, image optimization, performance tuning, custom CSS refinement, client review, go-live |
What Was Delivered
– Full luxury e-commerce website on WordPress + WooCommerce with custom Elementor build
– Custom mega navigation menu with three-tier category architecture and live product preview panel
– Custom Watch and Buy video commerce widget with modal product overlay and direct purchase action
– Custom slide-in cart panel replacing the default WooCommerce cart page redirect
– Custom quick view overlay widget for product browsing without page navigation
– Editorial collection landing page system — reusable for all future collection launches
– Eid 2026 collection with two sub-collection pages: Guldasta (گلدستہ) and Afsaneh (افسانه)
– Boishakh festival collection page
– Luxury product detail pages with custom-styled variant controls, gallery, and add-to-cart behavior
– Wishlist functionality with cross-session persistence
– Customer account system with Facebook and Google social login
– Custom-styled My Account pages matching site visual identity
– Multi-currency support: BDT, USD, CAD, AUD
– Shop by Category grid with visual category tile layout
– Exclusive section featuring limited edition and high-value pieces
– Blog section for brand editorial content and collection stories
– Mobile-optimized layout with custom responsive behaviour for all custom components
– Custom CSS throughout — zero WooCommerce or Elementor default styling visible
| 4 Custom Widgets | 4 Currencies | 12+ Product Categories | 2–3 Weeks to Launch |
Outcome
The Somalicious website was launched within the expected 2-3 week time frame and has been up and running for 1-3 months at the time of writing. This article is an attempt to objectively describe the success of the project – both technically and as a business platform – without inflating the results that are still in the early stages.
The most obvious and tangible result was a legitimate, brand-owned online presence. Prior to the website, Somalicious was selling products exclusively through social media – Facebook and Instagram. This meant the brand had no control over how the products were displayed, no way to structure an online shopping experience, and no way to capture overseas customers other than through direct messages. The website changes all of that. Somalicious now has a website that is as good as its products, is available 24/7 without the need for human intervention, and can be accessed by customers in Bangladesh, the US, Canada and Australia in their respective currencies.
The multiple currency option (BDT, USD, CAD, and AUD) means that for the first time, a customer in Toronto or Sydney can shop and buy directly, without having to haggle over price in a DM and then transfer funds through a hawala. This alone is a significant extension of the brand’s market potential, although it will take time for the benefits of that potential to become realised as the brand’s profile increases.
In terms of brand perception, the site provides something that social media doesn’t: the aura of a serious brand. The collection pages with editorial content, the premium design, the bespoke mega menu, and the elegant product detail pages all speak to the fact that Somalicious is doing something more than the average Bangladeshi fashion brand online. For a luxury brand where image is everything, this is not a secondary matter – it is the most important.
The Watch and Buy video commerce section has allowed the brand to showcase its products in action on the website and address a shortcoming of using stills. When a customer is buying a garment at $300 or above, they want to see how it will sit on them, how it will drape and how it will look – the video section provides this without having to navigate away from the site to Instagram or YouTube.
As far as the client is concerned, the site is now self-managed when it comes to product listings, collection launches and blog posts, through the WordPress admin area. Seasonal collections (such as the future Eid and Boishakh collections) can be launched on the editorial landing page template without developer support. The content structure developed as part of the project ensures the website is scalable and not a burden as the product range grows.
It is important to point out: a website that has been live for the last one to three months does not yet have the traffic, repeat purchase, or conversion metrics to make claims about performance. What can be said is that the site is built, the experience is at the standard required by the brand, and it is built in a way that makes it easy to support the marketing and growth strategies Somalicious may take on in the future.
Reflection
The quality of a luxury e-commerce project is determined before the first line of code is written. The realisation that this site would need to be “sleek” – as well as functional – informed all subsequent decisions: the typeface, the animation language, the navigation structure, the choice to build custom Elementor widgets rather than use the default ones, and the decision to strip away any design element that wasn’t directly contributing to the product.
The most technically challenging part of the build was developing custom Elementor widgets. The fact that the Watch and Buy module, the slide in cart, the quick view overlay and the editorial collection components are built as proper Elementor widgets (as opposed to raw HTML) means the client can manage these features via the page builder, rather than requiring developer intervention for day-to-day content updates. The up-front work on the widget architecture is rewarded with each new collection release.
WordPress, WooCommerce and Elementor Pro is still a good choice for a fashion e-commerce site of this scale. It offers the flexibility to create a unique product, the ease of content management a non-tech founder needs, and the e-commerce features to support international multi-currency sales – without the price tag of a bespoke build. The key to the success of the project is not the platform itself, but how it is used.
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