Review: Mrs. Parker's Millinery and Mercantile.

One more review and one that I should have posted ages ago: the second half of my bonnet commission from Mrs. Parker's Millinery and Mercantile. The bonnet itself is simply wonderful and everything I could hope for. Especially considering I was a demanding customer and totally changed my mind about the design at the very last moment.

The bonnet feels very sturdy and the quality is wonderful. It even survived some heavy-handed handling during the shipping, none of which can be seen any longer.

Both sides.

This is what happened:

When the bonnet was shipped to me the first time it arrived to Iceland just fine and the customs, naturally, caught it. Icelandic customs are good at catching things. However, they're not always good at letting the recipient know their parcel has arrived. I didn't receive a single notification that a parcel had arrived (as opposed to the usual e-mails and written notifications), they didn't even write the parcel in their system so that the tracking could have told me its whereabouts. As things were, the tracking constantly showed the parcel to be in Chicago.

After a month they decided I had "denied the parcel". This was a bit puzzling because denying would mean at least acknowledging the parcel but maybe they just automatically do that after a month, who knows. Personally I was always under the impression that to deny a parcel I would have to do it myself and in case a recipient was not found, the parcel would simply be returned, not returned "denied by recipient".

Besides this, when the sender received it back the parcel had been through some serious action. The bonnet was mildly damaged iow there was a large dent in the brim, but Ms. Robles was capable of fixing/hiding it so that it cannot really be seen. I'd like to mention she also did this completely free of charge which I found nothing less than amazingly good customer service.

This whole experience was quite a lesson to me. Never will I ever wait for weeks again if the parcel seems to be stuck somewhere - it could be the customs office of Iceland has simply forgotten about it. My failure to act cost me double the shipping costs, additional service fee to the office for having "stored" my parcel for a month plus of course the custom fees once the parcel did eventually arrive the second time. This time, happily, I was notified the usual way, by a letter and an e-mail.

In any case now it's finally home with me and much happiness has been had wearing it.

Type of feedback: positive!

Communication: 5/5

Accuracy of the item: 5/5

Was the item shipped when agreed upon: yes.

Packaging: 5/5

Overall experience: 4/5 but only because of the blunders of the customs office. It also didn't make me feel much better that they then asked me to pay them extra for having made those mistakes.

Reviw for LJ nick xkahax.

As mentioned before, this dress needs a review like, right now. If you'd like to read the short version it would be EVERYTHING AWESOME NO COMPLAINTS but if you want more details than that please head onward.

Here's the backside. All photos can be clicked larger as per usual.

I love that print to bits by the way. Beside that, this dress is of very nice quality - just look at that lace!

No complaints with the other details either.

This is my own least favourite thing to do when sewing: attaching zippers. It warms my heart to see such quality workmanship.

All seams are serged.

And here's the loops of the lacing, sturdy and very well made. Without further ado, comm_sales style feedback list:

Type of feedback: positive OMG

Communication: 5/5

Accuracy of the item: 5/5 because I can't put 6/5 for the dress being even lovelier IRL

Was the item shipped when agreed upon: yes. It was delayed a little on my end when the customs decided to wear the dress and prance around like little princesses kept it for several days for reasons unknown no rly they were totally prancing around wearing it

Packaging: 5/5

Overall experience: 100000000000000000000/5 I loved buying from this seamstress and will likely buy more of her items!

Puppet Circus replica vs. the real thing.

The red one is a real AP's Puppet Circus to compare with the Oo Jia replica.

A while ago I realized Oo Jia was making a replica of AP's Puppet Circus, my eternal dream dress that probably is eternally out of both my size- and price range. I then read the wonderful review by Halktia and after some due consideration decided to jump for it. This week I finally got my hands on the parcel (always remember Chinese New Year when ordering from China, always!) and so it's time for another Oo Jia Puppet Circus replica review, this time about the onepiece.

Upon arrival. Please disregard that the impatient recipient tore into the parcel right the moment she walked out of the post office. There definitely were no huge gaping holes when I received the parcel, no.

Inside the dress is wrapped in a simple plastic bag.

Here it is. It's looking rather good now, although there are already some things that I noticed were a little bit iffy. All photos can be clicked larger by the way, also note the dress isn't quite this shiny IRL.

The collar bit is fine and well-made. It's slightly tall though, or perhaps I have a cavewomanish neck.

Some randomness is going on at the cuffs. I can easily fix the strings hanging off and all the buttons might need re-sewing, but there's nothing I can do to the uneven placement of buttons on the other cuff.

Here's one of my biggest grievances, the cheap-looking lace. You see, until now in all the reviews I had previously seen of Oo Jia's PC replicas the lace had been agreeable. Mine - not so. I'm sure I can change the lace, but it does dampen the mood a little.

However, the print itself is not bad at all! In fact I'd say it's high quality and very detailed. The gold colour isn't "sparkly" in my dress as some have mentioned theirs to be, but rather matte. The fabric of the dress is shinier than the original, but this I knew to expect because I was asked in advance if I would mind that, and I said no. It wasn't a problem to me but just in case it's a problem to anyone who'd like to order this I advice to bear it in mind.

I'm lucky to own a real PC skirt so naturally it's now time for some side-to-side comparisons.  This is also a good way of seeing the actual difference between the fabrics used.

Very accurate! The fabric in the white dress is still a bit wrinkly.

In fact I was floored with how good the replica's print looked like. AP's is still a little bit sharper but you really have to have the real one next to the replica before you see any differences, and even then they are minimal.

Here's something I've heard people complain about before, the way the print is cut. I don't mind the seams as much as the hem (and the lace, but maybe I'm done bawwing about that by now).

Then there's this. It's the bow to the front of the dress. It's made of rather thin cotton and has no way of attaching it so I initially thought it was meant to be tied around the collar.

No problem with this lace here! No complaints at all! :3

Apologies for my stern face. I was getting sun in the eye.

The front looks very good. The shape is wonderful and the sleeves give enough room for moving my arms freely. The dress itself has a sturdy feel to it, a built-in petticoat (I'm wearing it over a petticoat of my own, however) and a lining. All very good work.

However, for some reason the back of the dress has less fabric than the front, which is obvious when looking at how tightly ruffled the skirt is at the waist. Therefore the backside does not flare out as nicely as the front. Sorry about the rather simplistic hairstyle, I just clipped it up so you get an idea of how tall the collar is. 

Then for tying the bow - except wait what?

The tie is not long enough to be tied nicely and it's nowhere near long enough to look the same as in the original.

However, now the ends would land almost where they should... I guess I'll make myself a new tie as well.

Ok, one more thing: the bows on the sleeves are uneven and already falling out. Again, nothing I couldn't fix myself but still a little bit disappointing.

To wrap it up in the way of the sales comm feedback:

Type of feedback: Positive

Communication: 5/5

Accuracy of item: 4/5 for the lace, cut and the neck tie. However, even together they don't trouble me too much (although I understand well that standards vary according to a person).

Was the item shipped when agreed upon: There was a delay due to the Chinese New Year. However, I was informed about this.

Packaging: 3/5

Overall experience: 4/5

Straw bonnet by Mrs Parker's Millinery and Mercantile.

I know I showed you this bonnet once already, but I did always mean to write a proper review on the whole process of ordering it and the other bonnet so here goes!

Firstly, the bonnet itself. It feel sturdy and is extremely well made, the materials used are high quality and all in all it's everything I dared hope, and more. I have nothing but good things to say and would wholeheartedly recommend Mrs Parker's Millinery and Mercantile to anyone wishing to commission a bonnet.

The back of the bonnet. Mrs Robles, the artist herself, even weaves the straw parts herself. As you commission, you can either give her a very specific design or pick one basic shape from the bonnets she's already made. Same goes for the decorations: you can either give her specific instructions or just state which colours you'd like to have included in it and leave the decoration to her, which is what I chose to do after seeing her previous work at her webpage - she has a really good eye for decorating, much better than my own.

You place an order by first contacting her and explaining what it is that you'd like to have. This can be very vague at this stage, she's very friendly and kind and really helps you through the whole process. All the information she needs to have she asks for, and she's very good at keeping contact with the customer. Note that she uses a different e-mail for communicating with the customer than then one you use to contact her first!

I started by explaining which bonnet types were the ones I liked, and in what colours. She then asked me further questions and explained her busy schedule - that I would have to wait for a couple of months for my order, which I agreed to because I wasn't in any particular sort of hurry - and once everything had been settled I paid half the price of the two bonnets I decided to order.

The first bonnet was ready exactly when she had said it would be. I then paid the rest of this one bonnet's price and the shipping costs and after that I got the bonnet even faster than I had anticipated. The only minus side is that the parcel got stuck in the customs but that's something that just happens a lot in Iceland and cannot really be counted into the experience. 

The bonnet itself sits very nicely on the head. I'm most impressed by how every little detail of my request has been taken into consideration here! The major ones - that I need to be able to secure the bonnet to my head tightly (you'll understand immediately if you live in Reykjavík) as well as the minor ones (my family has a silly superstition concerning flowers, I really liked a certain design she had used in a previous bonnet etc.). In my own opinion the bonnet also flatters me greatly! :D

The weave. Oh my. I love it. It may sound funny but this is one of my favourite parts of this bonnet, the weave and how nicely it's made. 

So this is the first bonnet and I'm more than happy about it. There's a second one in the making as well and I can hardly wait... To sum up everything, here's it all listed in the egl feedback style:

Communication: 5/5

Accuracy of item description: NA because it's a commissioned item, but accuracy of getting what I expected would be 5/5

Was the item shipped when agreed upon: yes

Packaging: 5/5 Came in a sturdy box, well-wrapped

Overall experience: 5/5

Additional comments: read above!

URL: Mrs Parker's Millinery and Mercantile

Edited to add photos of the bonnet worn, I know I posted these once already but I felt the review needs pics of how it looks worn as well.