Maryam Elisha of Rikaotobyme, the fashion designer involved in the Mercy Aigbe birthday dress has apologised after coming under severe criticism on social media on Monday.

It had been reported that a red dress worn by actress Mercy Aigbe for her 40th birthday photo-shoot on Monday became a bone of contention on Instagram after a Benin-based bride identified as rettypety on Instagram laid claims to the outfit saying it was originally hers.

She shared screenshots of her chat with the designer, and explained how she provided the material for the outfit and gave the idea for how she wanted the dress to look, only for the designer to disappoint on her wedding day.

The designer, in an Instagram post, has reacted to the issue, saying it was a result of an error in dispatch.

She wrote:

Our attention has been drawn to the ongoing chaos surrounding a dress and one of our esteemed clients on Instagram and possibly on other blogs and social media sites.

We would have preferred if this matter was addressed directly to us for a quick resolution and to avoid the media frenzy, but unfortunately it wasn’t.

We hold our clients dearly and offer our services on first come, first served bases with no iota of discrimination or insinuation of such.

We admit that a dispatch error occurred in the delivery of a dress to Miss Lawrentta, who was set to get married on the 30th December 2017 and the pick up of another dress on behalf of the actress, Mercy Aigbe.

Please note that both dresses were of the same style, the same colour (red) and almost the same measurement.

On realising the error on dispatch, we quickly tried to rectify the mix-up. But it was too late as the wrong dress was already on its way to Edo state for the bride to be.

We contacted the bride and explained we had an issue and asked if she would be comfortable with another dress, of same kind (which was the one meant for Mercy Aigbe), the bride agreed, so we allowed the dress to be delivered as time to recall dispatch was short in relation to the time of the wedding.

We have already apologised to Miss Lawrentta, but once again use the public fora to tender an unreserved apology to her and by extension to Mercy Aigbe who shouldn’t have been dragged into this.

We assure all our clients, past and future that our resolve to deliver top-notch designs to clients within the country and beyond will not be compromised and the error that led to this unhappy situation has since been corrected. Thank you.