BUYING A WEDDING DRESS FROM CHINA

BUYING A WEDDING DRESS FROM CHINA

Because you occasionally hear stories from people who ordered dresses from

China and had everything go reasonably well, it’s easy to harbor a secret hope that ordering directly from China means that you’re ordering a lower-cost version of a designer dress, made in the same factory. Unfortunately, this is not the case. It’s often unclear exactly who is making these dresses (though it is clear they are very poorly paid), but it’s not the same factories churning mass-market wedding dresses, or even factories with any quality control to speak of. In short, there are better ways to snag a wedding dress for $200 or $300.

If you order a dress directly from China, here is what you can expect:

• Dress will generally be made from a cheap fabric.
• There will be far fewer layers in the skirt than in the original dress design.
• Detailing will be sub-par.
• Workmanship will generally be a little shoddy. This can range from not so bad (uneven hemlines), to downright terrible (unfinished uneven hemlines, pulling fabric, items hot-glued to the dress).
• To save on shipping costs, your dress will be turned inside out and shoved into an impossibly small envelope, so have a steamer ready.

But alright already! You’re a woman of daring and risk, and you want to give this thing a whirl! Here is what you need to know to have the whole enterprise end in significantly fewer tears:

• Keep your expectations low. If your wedding dress is, in any serious sense, important to you, skip this plan. If your goal for your wedding dress is more “Something white to get married in,” things might turn out fine.
• Research, research, research. Make sure any store you order from has online reviews—lots of them. Although it’s hard to find a direct-from-China dress shop that has all positive reviews (even the places you hear great things about seem to have horror stories), look for as many good reviews as possible.
• Make sure they have a money-back guarantee.
• Get your measurements taken. You can be measured by the person who does tailoring at your local dry cleaner; it just needs to be someone who knows what he or she is doing.
• That picture of the designer dress on the site is not what the company is selling (nor do they have the rights to use the photo). So ask if you can see photos of dresses that they’ve recently made, including detail shots.
• Consider asking for improvements. It may increase the cost, but it might be worth it to ask for more expensive fabrics (higher-thread-count poly; lace that’s soft, not stiff), more layers on the skirt, and careful stitching.
• You can also ask for photos of the dress in progress, which might allow you to deal with errors in advance.
• And finally, allow extra time. The dress might not get to you as quickly as planned, and even if it does, it might not be exactly what you expected.

But hey, sometimes beauty comes from imperfection, and maybe a dress from China is exactly what you want.