Love 'em or hate 'em, Chinese replica wedding gowns seem to be here to stay. While we understand that many brides have a budget, we have just a few important points to make before we show you the goods (that is to say, photos of really crappy knockoff wedding gowns):
- If you buy a dress directly from China, you may not receive it in time. You may not ever get it at all.
- And if you do get it, and hate it, you rarely get your money back (or get it minus the $130 you'll spend sending it back). So, as we've seen several times here at Strut, the bride has to buy a second dress. Off the rack. Last minute. So brides are spending what a real dress could cost.
- If you get a dress, it will likely require a lot of alterations (see quote below), which will probably cost more than the dress itself.
- If you read reviews of the Chinese knockoff wedding gown makers, you can just hear the stress in the bride's writing. They have to watchdog the factory and micromanage the whole process, especially if the dress is cutting it close to the wedding date. What's peace of mind worth to you?
So, yes, they can make dresses cheaper. But the quality is truly terrible (see below, and see the previous post we did about buying a Chinese knockoff wedding dress).
Here's a photo from the Justin Alexander website of dress 8465:
We love the detail on the lace, so here's a photo we took of our in-store sample gown:
Now here are some photos of a bride's CHinese knockoff 8465. She bought it from simply.love:
Another bride bought a Demetrios knockoff from Dressilyme. Here's the original gown (check out the quality of the fabric and flowers, and the proportions of the details, and the draping):
And here's her Chinese knockoff dress:
Yikes. Recently on Weddingbee.com a bride posted this about her Chinese knockoff wedding dress (from Jeff Lui, we think):
The visible seams are poorly sewn, they are crooked and not stitched firmly, there are lots of lose stitches and they will probably come open even before the wedding.
There is grey sewing cotton near the zipper at the back. Grey on a white dress!!!
The straps are not attached at the back at all, I had to knot them. That looks ridiculous, it’s a wedding dress, not a children’s dress. They are also twisted, there is no way i could ever straighten them
I asked for a matte chiffon several times, but got a very shiny kind of whatever instead
Also the bust was supposed to be made of lace, but instead it has embellishments and pearls on it, which was never once mentioned, and definitely not what I asked for. And they are glued on plastic and then stitched on the bust with the plastic. WTF??
The bust has cups sewn in, these cups are too large for the bust of the dress, so it’s totally crooked and sticks out on the sides
Overall the dress is poorly made, everything looks wonky and asymmetric, not straight, the fabrics look ultra cheap,and it’s not what I ordered at all.
I sent him an email yesterday, and he would make me another dress for free, but I had to pay the shipping costs. Not sure if I will do that.
This is definitely a case of buyer beware!
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