Magic Tea Party Bears Paradise skirt review

I’ve been ogling this skirt for sooo long now it’s unreal. Some of you may remember that it was on my wishlist in the last Lolidrobe Reassessment Post – and yes, I have braved the world and got it.

Price and shipping

Once again I used My Lolita Dress. I was going to buy it directly from Taobao and use Free Shopping China as my SS, but there was something wrong going on with their website, which meant that despite several attempts, I still couldn’t pay for it, so I decided to give MLD another chance. I got my Infanta Swan Lake chiffon blouse from them, and have had a very good experience, so I felt a bit surer buying from them again.

The skirt was $33.99 (about £23.76 at the moment) and I went for Airmail postage, which added another $23.10 (£16.15), so neither the cheapest nor the most expensive option. I again had the misfortune of placing the order around the Chinese New Year and had to wait a bit longer to get this posted, but it could still have been worse.

• Order placed and paid on January 31^st.
• It’s been shipped on February 20^th.
• First attempt at delivery with Royal Mail made on March 5^th…
• …however, for the first time ever, Royal Mail failed to redeliver when requested, so they made a second (unannounced and therefore unsuccessful) attempt on March 11^th.
• And finally it arrived on March 14^th.

Had I known the exact dates of when MLD was closed for business due to the holiday, I would’ve placed my order at a better time, but 2 weeks to actually get to the UK with Airmail, and an additional week due to Royal Mail failure, still isn’t the worst that has happened to me when Lolita shopping. Furthermore, Linda from My Lolita Dress is incredibly helpful and quick to respond, which makes tonnes of difference, especially at a time like this.

Parcel and item itself

Pretty standard as far as wrapping goes: your usual grey postage bag and another plastic bag on the inside. But they clearly do the job, as it arrived unscathed.

My biggest worry was that the skirt wouldn’t fit. The measurements listed on Magic Tea Party’s Taobao page said that size L-XL (which I ordered) measured 76cm at the waist, while I measure 80cm. The reason I risked it was the fact that it has partial shirring – simply by logic it couldn’t have been just one set measurement. Having browsed a whole load of other Magic Tea Party skirts, shirred and not, and comparing the measurements, I thought that this one should be the minimum one, and with this much shirring surely I’d be able to fit into it.

And phew, it does fit, rejoice!

At 80cm waist I can do up the side zip without much trouble (although like most zips it gets a little stuck at the horizontal seam), and given that it’s not even at full stretch when zipped, I reckon it could probably go another 1 or 2 centimetres more. This has made me so, sooo happy, I really looked forward to this skirt arriving and prayed my hardest that it’d fit.

So, going back to more general stuff about this review… It comes with 5 detachable bows: 1 for the front and 4 to attach at the hem. What I didn’t realise is that what looks like an underskirt peeking out is actually part of the skirt (that faux underskirt is actually incredibly soft and pettable!), and the scalloping around the printed fabric gives you clues as to where the bows should be attached. Unfortunately, the pin part has detached itself from one of the smaller bows, but I have tried to glue it back together.

It’s probably the only fault I’ve found, other than needing some good ironing after spending so much time in a bag, however, as I’m not a seamstress and I’m not particularly going to inspect every seam with a magnifying glass, I wasn’t particularly looking out for them. I absolutely adore the print, it feels like one of those you could spend hours looking at and still find a new cutesy bear that you missed before. And while the material overall is a little on the thinner side, with the skirt hitting my knee, clever layering as well as some of my recent additions should make it if not winter-friendly, then at least chill-resistant.

The colour is a little odd as far as my wardrobe goes (it’s very hard to describe, something between very grey yellow and pretty grey cream, with more and less muted shades of brown), I’m sure I’ll manage to pull off a decent enough coord with it. And if I don’t – it only gives me an excuse to buy more stuff, doesn’t it?

First time I put a bit of a coord for a blog
photo - appreciate it, please ^^

Overall

Price: 5/5 – now that I felt and seen the quality of it, I actually think that it was a fairly cheap purchase

Shipping: 5/5 – despite some issues with Royal Mail (I don’t count the problems with delayed shipping as that was mostly my fault, and Linda did keep me informed as to when my order would be sent out)

Item quality: 4.5/5 – had to take something off for one of the bows needing fixing, but it’s not a big enough issue to warrant any more than -0.5