✿ custom qipao journey part 4 ✿ (Patreon)

Hi everyone! It's been a while since I last updated about my custom qipao... and in big news, it's finally finished! There were a lot of ups and downs during the process and to be honest I didn't quite get the dress of my dreams, but I still wanted to share the result!

So around late June, Annie let me know my dress was ready to ship! I was super excited to get it in the mail and see how it looked in person!! Unfortunately, due to my own mistake with the measurements, so the dress was way too short. I had used measurement based on my own qipao as well as mini qipaos I saw online, but I didn't take into account that the models wearing those dresses were probably on the petite side ~5'2" and I'm 5'5.5 for context! I couldn't raise my arms without showing anything and the armholes felt quite tight. ;____;

I paired it with my pleated skirt to see how much more length I'd need and asked to add a few cm, along with armhole adjustment! Honestly, though, it does look pretty cute with the skirt here.

Without the skirt! Def a little way too short! T___T Ahhh my biggest mistake!!

So after receiving the dress and discussing it with Annie, we agreed to proceed with making a final and third dress. While I offered to pay to create a new piece, she kindly said there wouldn't be an additional charge since making this dress has been helping iron out kinks within their beta custom qipao program. We went through the measurements for adjustment and then it took about another month to make the new dress.

Throughout August, I was updated with how the dress was coming along. Here is how it looked near the finish!

After a week or so, Annie then updated letting me know some bad news... She had gotten the dress in person and unfortunately, the fabric has printed a lot lighter than the previous dress. ;___; I was really disappointed but there wasn't really anything either of us could do. She offered to give me a full refund but I felt like since so much labor had been done throughout the whole process it wouldn't be fair to her and the studio. Sometimes things happen, and mistakes are simply a part of the product-making process!

Here's how the final dress looked! 

Pros: 

• Longer length
• Much more comfortable armholes

Cons: 

• Lighter fabric print ;__;
• The bottom half is too tight and I actually can't sit down in it! :-(

She also let me keep the second dress as well, which they replaced the pankou with blue bunny pankou! It is still cute, but somehow I'm liking this one a bit better than my final dress due to the comfort level since I can actually sit down in it. 

Also here is a look at a professional photoshoot that Annie did for my second dress! This one was unfortunately too short but I loved these shots so much so I wanted to share~

Overall, even though I didn't end up with the dress of my dreams and there were pros and cons to both remade dresses I'm still happy with the result! Annie and her team were incredibly patient and supportive through the dress-making process and we even went through three iterations, so I'm incredibly grateful for their time. In the future, I'd definitely go with a simpler pattern (checker!) and be a lot more meticulous with the checking process. 

The final step in my qipao dress journey is doing a photoshoot! I'm getting my hair color corrected and dyed again tomorrow and afterward, I'll take some cute photos to share! 

To create your own custom qipao, I highly recommend you check out Qipaoya aka Annie!

Thank you guys so much for joining me on this journey~ If you're interested in reading the whole thing check out the #customqipaojourney on the Patreon page or the link below!

✿ custom qipao journey ✿