Thursday, January 21, 2016

~SurfaceSpell Review (Judgement Day~

Hello everyone!

This is a review I've been meaning to put up for a while, I just really haven't had time. 

In November, I put in an order through TaobaoRing (which I can do a separate review on) for a dress from the indie brand SurfaceSpell. The dress in question? Judgement Day! (Checking the store, it seems to no longer be available there).

This dress struck me from the first time I saw it. I thought it was very beautiful and elegant. Originally, I thought the cross on the bottom was just a screen print, but when I found out it was actually embroidered, I was sold on getting the dress.

Here is a stock image of Judgement Day:


There are several different colors you can choose on this dress. I picked the black and gold version (black dress, gold embroidery). 

Ordering Process:

I placed my order in early November, and asked my SS if it would be possible to get it by December 5th, when I had a meet-up. Unfortunately, it didn't (which was fine in the end - I wore it for a tea party this month), but I was kind of annoyed when it came at the end of December instead. It can't really be helped, I guess. So I guess the turnaround time was around two months. Not abnormal for something custom made.

The Dress:

Now for the fun part. This section will be picture heavy.

It was packaged nicely (I can go into detail about that on a TaobaoRing review, because it's not really necessary right now). 

Anyway, the dress was quite beautiful, but I want to address some issues I had with it. 



First, let's talk about the bodice. The front is constructed pretty nicely, but as you can see, the lace is quite unfitting for this dress! I would definitely describe this as being a more gothic dress, with the religious theme, and when I saw they had used daisies, I had to laugh. I know that indie brands sometimes use what's at hand, but I felt like they could have picked a different lace for sure. The only way I can redeem this is by using the phrase "pushing up daisies". That works, right?

Also, the bow is kind of tiny and the ribbon is a bit cheap to me. I might replace that at some point. 

Let's take a look at the back of the bodice.





This is where I really had some issues. Look at the left strap! The right strap was fine, but the left strap was sewn together. I had to go into the inside of the dress and open the fabric to cut the threads that had made it this way. Quality control, people!! This was very disappointing coming from a reputable indie brand like SurfaceSpell!

The rest of the back is pretty similar to the front. Same materials. Same weird daisies.


The bottom of the dress I'm fine with. EXCEPT (and I don't have a picture of this on me) there was an overlap where the lace ended. They hadn't even cut it so it was the same all the way around. One of those circles was literally on top of another circle. 




Now for my favorite part. The embroidery is beautiful. I can't say anything bad about it. I love it and the gold is very beautiful.

Feedback: 

As you can see, this dress had a lot of issues. I contacted SurfaceSpell on Facebook (pretty much using these same pictures and describing the issues) and this was their reply. 


I really do hope they contacted the Taobao shop, because to me, some of these issues are unacceptable. I could understand some of these things coming from a newer or more inexperienced indie brand, but I'm very disappointed that the Taobao shop had these issues. I think if you want to order from SurfaceSpell, go with their Etsy shop!

I won't put a final score on this one, since most of what I use for that relates to shipping and communication (which was all done by my SS). 

Thank you so much for reading, and I hope this review was helpful. If you have any questions, please let me know. 

I'll leave you with a picture of me wearing the dress :).