Cocktail Dress: A Review

I bought the Victoria's Secret Ruched Jersey Dress back on April 9th and received it in the mail on April 15th. You can see a picture of the dress {mine was in black, not pewter} and a link to the dress on the website in my post, Shopping Round-Up: Part One. In the picture it looked absolutely gorgeous — sleek, chic and body-friendly. I was VERY excited to finally get a little black dress that I could wear on many occasions.

I bought the dress in a size small, as the website specifies that it's equal to a size 4/6, which is the size I usually wear in dresses. But, I was very. very. wrong. From the second I removed it from the bag, I knew it wasn't going to work. The material was very thin — from the picture on the website I expected it to be more structured, at least near the waistline. But it was almost as thin as a pair of nylons, and was much stretchier than I anticipated, which meant that it was quite clingy {in the wrong places}. It was also very wrinkled from the way it was packaged, which was a red flag to me indicating that it would be too easy to wrinkle when wearing it and would require a lot of ironing, if the fabric could even be ironed. But, I tried it on anyway. The length was perfect, hitting right at my knees, but that was really the only perfect thing about the dress. My main concern was how it looked on my "backside" — it was snug in all of the areas where it should have draped nicely, and it made my bum look huge. Now, I'm well aware of the fact that I have some extra {lovin} in that area, and usually I don't mind it. But this. was. ridiculous. I could have carried a stack of books on the shelf that the dress made my backside look like. It probably goes without saying, but I was utterly mortified and took it off immediately, shoved it in the bag and packed it with the rest of my outgoing mail. And to make it an extra-special experience, I read the return policy and noticed that they take the $5.99 return shipping cost out of the amount reimbursed for your order. So while it looks like they give you a pre-paid mailing label for a free return, they end up docking that amount from my total return {pretty stupid}.

So, what have I learned from this? Pretty much what I already knew: buy dresses in the store, not online. And if the price is cheap or has been reduced significantly over time, it's not far-fetched to assume the product is cheap as well, and it's still in stock because people are returning it — proof that not all bargains are beautiful.

With that being said, stay fabulous!