So remember Igigi had that big sale and it was the Sale of the Century? Well, I caved.
If you remember, I have not had good luck with Igigi. It pains me because I really like the idea of well-made boutique clothes in the plus sizes, I LOVE that they’re made in America and plus, well, they’re an advertiser and I’m not sure if you’re aware, but there’s a recession on and mama still needs her miu mius.
Anyhoodle.
I didn’t like their trench dress they sent me for review –though to give credit where it’s due, it was well-constructed out of a nice heavy knit jersey– and then when I bought this dress, they not only sent me the wrong color, they wanted me to pay to ship the wrong color back and then pay again to have the right color shipped. Uh. No. And also their excuse for shipping me the wrong color to begin with? They had a lot of orders that week. Yeah.
I ended up keeping the dress, but I gave it to Goodwill without wearing it. I don’t know how they had it pinned on the model, but that was not how it hung on me and the jersey was a little closer to swimsuit material than I typically prefer.
.
Then there was this trench dress I was sent to review, as modeled here on Nikki Blonsky:
You can read the full review here, but basically it was mumsy mumsy mumsy. Because I’m tall and have a lot of “presence” I can carry off looks a lot of other big girls can’t, and even I couldn’t make this one work to the level I require if I’m wearing something in public. This was A Lot of Look (La Blonsky is wearing it without the sash) in a way that managed to be both too much AND incredibly boring at the same time. It was very well made though, so I’ll give them that.
So I picked up two dresses at the Sale of the Century. Both of them were gambles and I knew that going in, but I wanted to give Igigi another try and I’m not above stepping out of my comfort zone.
When I saw this I thought “Hmm, it could go either way, but I bet I could make it work.” I mean it’s tacky, but it’s sort of GOOD tacky, like Dynasty. I knew the jersey would be good quality so the whole thing depended on the quality of the lace. I didn’t expect much, but I’d been pleasantly surprised at the quality of Kiyonna’s lace, so maybe I’d be surprised by Igigi’s as well.
Oh, sadly not.
The thing about lace is that cheap lace looks like cheap lace, and sometimes even not-inexpensive lace looks like, well, cheap lace. This? Looked like cheap lace.And there’s just no recovering from cheap lace. Do what you want, accessorize it beautifully and pair it with thousand-dollar shoes, you’ll still be the girl in the cheap lace dress and no one, NO ONE wants to be that girl.
So that left me with this dress:
Okay, I bought this dress for one reason and one reason only: it’s the same color as my favorite pen. It’s not the most extravagant thing I ever purchased simply because it was veridian green (that honor goes to my 1972 Cadillac convertible) but I cannot resist that shade of green.
The good:
The color is great. They actually sent me the right color and it’s nicely lined.
The bad:
It’s swimsuit material. Not KINDA swimsuit material like the dress I gave away last year. It’s straight out shiny stretchy swimsuit material. I love spandex as much as the next girl, and it’s good to know that when I finally DO get in a fight in a lily pond I’ll have something to wear that won’t see permanent damage, but unless I’m wearing a Herve Leger bandage dress (which I will never, ever do) there really is no place for THAT much shiny spandex in a formal setting. Actually, there’s no place for that much shiny spandex outside of Miss Olivia Newton-John’s “Let’s Get Physical” video.
Also, I feel I should note this is a long dress. I mean loooong. As in I am 5’10” and this pooled on the floor. In 4″ heels it was still floor-length. The measurements are listed as 60″ long, but my own measuring put it at 62.25″ I don’t know if I got a freak sample or what. I don’t know if I’ll return it, I might actually have it converted into a bathing suit plus sarong because I’m tranny like that (do you even need to ASK if there will be a coordinating turban?) but this marks my last adventure with Igigi.
And now a little light entertainment!
New York: Lee Lee’s Valise is celebrating its second anniversary! Congratulations! On Saturday, the store will offer champagne and mingling time. Store hours and directions 
