Qutieland/ Rose Melody Review
Jul. 9th, 2010 08:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandriaweb(considering cross posting to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
egl friendlist Lolis, let me know if you think I should)
Way, way back on May 10th I ordered this dress:
www.qutieland.com/products/big/RMJ0013-2.jpg (linked because it won't let me post it as a picture)
I read through all the terms and conditions before ordering, and they seemed pretty straight forward to me, if I had been confused by anything, I would have emailed for a better explanation and if I hadn't been satisfied with that I wouldn't have ordered. This seems like common sense to me.
For website navigation etc I'd give them a 5/5
I checked the website every day in a state of terror (heh first time ordering nerves), I knew it was going to take a while to get to me from reading other people's reviews, but just under a fortnight ago I couldn't take the pressure any more and sent a panic email.
Billy was incredibly quick to respond (a day and a half), reassured me that I wasn't being crazy and let me know that I should receive my dress in around a week and a half.
As it happens it was exactly a week and a half :)
For correspondence I give them 5/5
For time I give them 3/5, from what I can tell other Taobao agents don't take as long, so I'm a little confused about that.
So yesterday morning the Postman knocked me out of bed to give me my parcel, it was in a grey bag made out of thick plastic and there was a LOT of parcel tape securing it. It took me more than ten minutes to get past that bit, which while frustrating (I wanted my dress dammit!), I am actually pretty happy with because it meant nothing got damaged in the hell that is the UK postal service.
inside grey, fingernail snapping bag of doom was a thinner, clear plastic bag which was marked with what the item was:
(Please excuse Stirfry Cat and John Pertwee, they were being curious).
Thankfully this bag took me seconds to open.
So for packaging I give them 5/5
Now onto the Rose Melody section of the review (I'm making a definition between the two because technically Quiteland is just the middleman so weather the garment is good or bad quality should effect their score),
After navigating the packaging I laid it out to take a photograph.
The blue fabric is a deeper blue than I expected, but I figure that could be down to my monitor settings, if anything, I like it better.
I ran to try it on, so here I am looking like a blouse-less, petticoat-less myspace angles hussy taking my own photo in the hallway mirror...
Oh yeah, no shoes either :/
It's fits perfectly, I was a little worried about the length when I ordered but it looks fine to me now I have it.
I was also a little worried because of all the "extra winter underwear room" thing that's been going on lately, that it was gonna be huge, but no, perfect fit.
So for fit I give it a 5/5
Here I am again looking blurry in a half finished blouse I'm working on:
(apologies for the amount of mess in the hallway, Stirfry managed to cause a fire the night before and I knocked a bunch of things over in my wake trying to find something to put it out with and hadn't had tie to clear up yet).
Fabric nerdery time:
On the website it says that the blue fabric is woollen. I'm pretty sure this isn't the case, it feels more like some kind of synthetic yarn (although to be fair if I hadn't have spent two and a half years learning the difference in handle I think I'd have thought it was wool to), that's not a bad thing really though. It's interlock jersey fabric (that means it's knitted on a fine gauge knitting machine, rather than woven like most fabrics) that has been felted on one side (I suspect this was done with agitation needles rather than washing it, sorry am I being to nerdy here?), there is one thing that is kind of weird though. The fabric itself is sideways (the "v" shapes in interlock should run up and down not side to side), and because of that if this was a tighter garment it would stretch awkwardly around the body, but as the skirt section is loose and the bodice is supported by bones that isn't as much of an issue, it's just a bit weird is all and I can't fathom out why they'd do that.
The chiffon is very soft and high quality, I pretty much went over this with a fine toothed comb and only found two loom faults (which is excellent when you consider than some of the highest quality fabrics can have up to five per metre). For anybody interested (I can't see there being anybody interested but just in-case) there's a snapped warp on it's own and a "clatter mark" where one of the weaving shafts has fallen onto the fabric and broken several warps at different points, which actually isn't as bad as it sounds because it's pretty hard to notice.
The lining fabric is pretty much average standard triacetate lining, I'm not really a fan of the stuff myself, but that's personal feelings, and it's pretty much the standard lining of everything these days.
So for fabric quality (the sideways interlock is a garment quality issue not a fabric one), I give: 4.9/5
Onto garment manufacture.
I was a little worried when I first ordered because it said that it had plastic bones in it and since getting my first steel boned corset from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pandaemonaeum I am now a terrible "Steel bones only" corset snob, but these bones are pretty good quality for plastic. They are sturdy, don't bend out of shape and stitched in incredibly well so I don't think they'll pop out.
The embroidery is incredible and there are no, yes I repeat NO LOOSE THREADS! Although there is still the odd piece of vilene attached that should have been removed. This isn't a massive deal though as I can do that myself.
The general stitching is again to a very high quality.
My only real problem is that the invisible zip is underneath the lacing at one side and it means I have to unlace the whole thing to get in and out.
Overall (including the sideways fabric) I give the manufacture a 4/5
So my grand totals.
Qutieland 4/5
Rose Melody 4.5/5
Even though it's cheaper to use a shopping service than Qutieland, I'd rather pay a little more and know that if there's a problem it should be fairly easy to sort out and I won't end up trying to email people in languages I don't understand.
I actually have my eye on another Quitieland dress andbloodmyer and I are planning on getting it in different colourways so we can twin.
In closing, I'm super duper happy, money well spent and I'll hopefully get some better photos of the dress in action at Gay Pride next week :)
egl friendlist Lolis, let me know if you think I should)Way, way back on May 10th I ordered this dress:
www.qutieland.com/products/big/RMJ0013-2.jpg (linked because it won't let me post it as a picture)
I read through all the terms and conditions before ordering, and they seemed pretty straight forward to me, if I had been confused by anything, I would have emailed for a better explanation and if I hadn't been satisfied with that I wouldn't have ordered. This seems like common sense to me.
For website navigation etc I'd give them a 5/5
I checked the website every day in a state of terror (heh first time ordering nerves), I knew it was going to take a while to get to me from reading other people's reviews, but just under a fortnight ago I couldn't take the pressure any more and sent a panic email.
Billy was incredibly quick to respond (a day and a half), reassured me that I wasn't being crazy and let me know that I should receive my dress in around a week and a half.
As it happens it was exactly a week and a half :)
For correspondence I give them 5/5
For time I give them 3/5, from what I can tell other Taobao agents don't take as long, so I'm a little confused about that.
So yesterday morning the Postman knocked me out of bed to give me my parcel, it was in a grey bag made out of thick plastic and there was a LOT of parcel tape securing it. It took me more than ten minutes to get past that bit, which while frustrating (I wanted my dress dammit!), I am actually pretty happy with because it meant nothing got damaged in the hell that is the UK postal service.
inside grey, fingernail snapping bag of doom was a thinner, clear plastic bag which was marked with what the item was:
(Please excuse Stirfry Cat and John Pertwee, they were being curious).
Thankfully this bag took me seconds to open.
So for packaging I give them 5/5
Now onto the Rose Melody section of the review (I'm making a definition between the two because technically Quiteland is just the middleman so weather the garment is good or bad quality should effect their score),
After navigating the packaging I laid it out to take a photograph.The blue fabric is a deeper blue than I expected, but I figure that could be down to my monitor settings, if anything, I like it better.
I ran to try it on, so here I am looking like a blouse-less, petticoat-less myspace angles hussy taking my own photo in the hallway mirror...
Oh yeah, no shoes either :/It's fits perfectly, I was a little worried about the length when I ordered but it looks fine to me now I have it.
I was also a little worried because of all the "extra winter underwear room" thing that's been going on lately, that it was gonna be huge, but no, perfect fit.
So for fit I give it a 5/5
Here I am again looking blurry in a half finished blouse I'm working on:
(apologies for the amount of mess in the hallway, Stirfry managed to cause a fire the night before and I knocked a bunch of things over in my wake trying to find something to put it out with and hadn't had tie to clear up yet).Fabric nerdery time:
On the website it says that the blue fabric is woollen. I'm pretty sure this isn't the case, it feels more like some kind of synthetic yarn (although to be fair if I hadn't have spent two and a half years learning the difference in handle I think I'd have thought it was wool to), that's not a bad thing really though. It's interlock jersey fabric (that means it's knitted on a fine gauge knitting machine, rather than woven like most fabrics) that has been felted on one side (I suspect this was done with agitation needles rather than washing it, sorry am I being to nerdy here?), there is one thing that is kind of weird though. The fabric itself is sideways (the "v" shapes in interlock should run up and down not side to side), and because of that if this was a tighter garment it would stretch awkwardly around the body, but as the skirt section is loose and the bodice is supported by bones that isn't as much of an issue, it's just a bit weird is all and I can't fathom out why they'd do that.
The chiffon is very soft and high quality, I pretty much went over this with a fine toothed comb and only found two loom faults (which is excellent when you consider than some of the highest quality fabrics can have up to five per metre). For anybody interested (I can't see there being anybody interested but just in-case) there's a snapped warp on it's own and a "clatter mark" where one of the weaving shafts has fallen onto the fabric and broken several warps at different points, which actually isn't as bad as it sounds because it's pretty hard to notice.
The lining fabric is pretty much average standard triacetate lining, I'm not really a fan of the stuff myself, but that's personal feelings, and it's pretty much the standard lining of everything these days.
So for fabric quality (the sideways interlock is a garment quality issue not a fabric one), I give: 4.9/5
Onto garment manufacture.
I was a little worried when I first ordered because it said that it had plastic bones in it and since getting my first steel boned corset from
pandaemonaeum I am now a terrible "Steel bones only" corset snob, but these bones are pretty good quality for plastic. They are sturdy, don't bend out of shape and stitched in incredibly well so I don't think they'll pop out.The embroidery is incredible and there are no, yes I repeat NO LOOSE THREADS! Although there is still the odd piece of vilene attached that should have been removed. This isn't a massive deal though as I can do that myself.
The general stitching is again to a very high quality.
My only real problem is that the invisible zip is underneath the lacing at one side and it means I have to unlace the whole thing to get in and out.
Overall (including the sideways fabric) I give the manufacture a 4/5
So my grand totals.
Qutieland 4/5
Rose Melody 4.5/5
Even though it's cheaper to use a shopping service than Qutieland, I'd rather pay a little more and know that if there's a problem it should be fairly easy to sort out and I won't end up trying to email people in languages I don't understand.
I actually have my eye on another Quitieland dress and
bloodmyer and I are planning on getting it in different colourways so we can twin.In closing, I'm super duper happy, money well spent and I'll hopefully get some better photos of the dress in action at Gay Pride next week :)
