MHA Stain cosplay. Order number: *******111. They take DAYS to respond to emails.
Ordered on the 5th of July, with express shipping and tailoring. "Shipping Option - EXPRESS DELIVERY 3-5days Plus 1-4 Weeks Tailoring Period." So that means it should have been finished no later than the 2nd of August, and delivered no later than the 9th (allowing for the weekend in between).
16th of July, their email said it would be finished within 20 days (which makes it the 5th - that's past the 4 weeks mark as said in express!).
"The use-by date is a reference and we cannot guarantee 100%" then don't have the function. Don't offer it at all. Just make the cosplays in order that they're ordered and offer standard/express/other options shipping. It's a $#*!ty business move to offer deadlines you can't keep.
After many back and forths, they allegedly finished it on the 19th. Then claimed they finished it on the 22nd and it was being sent to the warehouse. 24th, I got this: "Hi, your order has finished now and we need to double-check the quality". So much for being sent to the warehouse.
27th, morning, I got this: "Thanks for your days of waiting and sorry about it.Your order has been finished and it is on the way to our warehouse.We will send it asap after checking.Thank you." Same message 5 days later. Evening: "Thank you for your reply and we are checking with the factory. If we have any updates, we will let you know. Thank you."
29th. "Your order has been finished now and we need to double-check the quality. If no problem, we will ship them out this week. Thank you." Said the same on the 24th?
31st. "Thank you for your reply and sorry about it. There is something wrong with our factory and we will remake the pants.The shin guards are missing the metal buckle. Once we finish it, we will ship them out asap. Thank you." Eugh. I've given up. $#*!ty communication, contradictory info given, and now, they $#*!ed up.
Don't do business with people who don't keep deadlines.
Trust the negative reviews.
Nothing, because it's never going to arrive.
Before I write anything I want to show before anything else, I am not talking trash about a company with no clue about what I am really saying. I have some experience in sewing (leather, primarily) and metal fabrication, admittedly cloth and synthetics not so much, hence why I purchased an outfit from this company rather than making it myself. Please keep in mind that due to that, my terminology in this review will be inaccurate and somewhat in lamens terms. I understand profit margins. I understand this company is not a group of master seamstresses and I understand the quality of work to be expected from this price range.
For context, I am a man (I know, wearing a girl's outfit, it's ironic just for giggles) and I wear a large at 5'10" and 170lbs.
I am very disappointed with the price I paid overall, and the quality of work I received. The website's photos are not detailed enough to show what you are paying for. After receiving the item (which, pleasantly took less time than I expected) and reviewing the pictures, I can now see why the item appears online to be of better workmanship than it truly is.
I purchased the Exusiai KFC Cosplay (191 subtotal), the wig (which was actually okay) and the shoes (47). So my only criticisms will apply to either the shoes or the outfit itself.
Not a huge deal, but I ordered a large, male (they allow the choice between female and male for sizing so I picked the right one) when I am in between a medium and large according to their size chart, and because I wanted room to grow into it. I found out the chest area is extremely tight for both the undercoat and poncho, severely restricting shoulder mobility. But that's not a big deal, it's to be expected when they aren't custom tailoring it to my measurements, but considering that all of the upper body measurements were supposed to be too big for me is the problem I have with it.
Really my main issue is with the shorts, shoes, and the belt/bags of the outfit. Every single article has some sort of loose threads, and a number of them were not knotted at the end so they pulled out exceptionally easily.
The shorts are significantly longer than I expected (although that may be due to me picking the male option in sizing) and are made of a single-layer, synthetic fabric (when they should be cotton or denim). And it uses a plastic snap button instead of a proper flat button. It would have cost them barely anything to buy higher quality shorts of the proper material, but they chose this instead.
The shoes have that yellow vinyl trim around the sole, well it's not cut straight as if they cut it freehand. The shoes also have "AIR" written on the side and on the bottom of the sole you have some hilariously cheap depiction of a man dunking, obviously some air Jordan knockoffs. But that's perfectly fine to me, the problem I have with it is they didn't bother to sand off the "AIR" on the side when they made the shoe and you can see it through the vinyl trim, so I had to do it myself. I know they are buying these shoes for pennies on the dollar, how hard is it for a few minutes of sanding, melting with acetone, and using a ruler to cut your fabric to sell it for 47USD? Exusiai's symbol on the tongue is cut in a poor manner and isn't even correct to the outfit. But, other than that the shoes actually look really cool and fit well, especially after I was done messing with them. Although it's displayed in the pictures and not a negative consideration for my review, the place where the vinyl seam meets should be at the rear of the shoe, not the inside middle near the arch.
The blue large patches on the poncho have adhesion issues (I mean it is translucent plastic, of course it won't stick well, and that's why we sand smooth surfaces before painting) and has many bubbles underneath, causing it to pull off easily and requiring me to glue it back on. The edges of the patches are not cut square and they are fraying from lack of rolled and glued edges or chemical/heat sealing (like cauterizing the edges).
The belts and bags are atrocious. To understand the outfit, you have one small bag that goes on the black undershirt and its own belt, and then a much large shoulder harness-type belt with two larger bags that goes outside of the poncho. Surprise surprise, the big belt for the harness assembly is not adjustable, so it just hangs down. The way you get the waist to look good in a big baggy jacket (which wasn't that baggy, same material as the shorts, synthetic and sad) is the belt will pull it tight. If it just hangs it would look terrible and unstructured. Belt was far too large, and no way of changing its length. So I just grabbed a belt from goodwill, sewed the clip buckle onto it, and used that instead. The small belt is adjustable funny enough, but it uses a super cheap, probably stamped sheet metal tri-glide slide that will definitely cut you if you hit it hard enough. Like I said, cents on the dollar (less actually).
This company obviously made the small bag with its own belt, but it doesn't make sense to me why they did that. The larger bags on the harness belt are some Chinese brand, and look much better (but overall not amazing). I also noticed, but I may be wrong that Exusiai has three bags on her harness belt, not two, along with the smaller under-jacket bag I mentioned earlier. The material the belts are made is a single layer with no rounded or stitched edges, and some of the lowest quality synthetic leather I have ever seen. The over-shoulder piece actually broke at the loop around the belt while I was test-fitting it, and I did not have it particularly tight. But all this makes me think,
Why not just get premade bags and belts for everything? Overall knowing domestic Chinese prices, it would cost (and this is being generous) a few dollars more, for a significantly better end product.
This is the main reason for my 1-star review.
The shoes and costume come out to 238 USD SUBTOTAL.
Let's say this outfit took 4 hours to produce, at the absolute most, and 5 USD of material (they buy in bulk, this is generous, I've spent my time on Aliexpress). Let's say the person (or people) who made this outfit get paid 10 USD/HR (which they most definitely don't). Finally, let's say there's an overhead of those 4 hours of approx 5 USD/HR (remember, that number is only for my outfit, not the tens of others they are making at the same time for their custom-made ones).
That's 65 USD to produce (extremely generous in my numbers, most countries DO NOT get paid anywhere NEAR American wages and pay American prices, especially one known for their cheap labor)
Being sold for a price of 238 and was made for 65. That's a ~73% profit margin, in my experience, that is about 10% above what I see in retail.
TLDR; I cannot support a company that charges this much money for this quality of a product. I expected better for this price, and I am now trying to fix their mistakes less than a week before Halloween. Maybe their other outfits are better but I am never going to order from this company again.
I honestly expected this outfit to come after Halloween, I hope that it wasn't partially my fault for setting the use date on Halloween, perhaps causing them to rush my order. That said, I don't see how this quality of work is acceptable by any means, I'd rather have an outfit worth wearing too late than one I don't want to wear on time.
Their other outfits may be better, just look carefully so you are more confident in what you are purchasing and be especially considerate of whether or not it is worth it.
Its a full outfit, you get it all.