Indie Tights Review : Baroque X Sakizo Antique Frames and Royal Jewelry

When I started wearing lolita, it started a love affair in finding and collecting fashionable tights. Please feel free to tag or share this with other people and please by all means comment questions about any of the brands I review. I am happy to help as best I can. 

My review is a 1 to 5 scale, 5 being the best, in regards to: 
Construction
Quality
Elasticity
How well the print holds up stretched
Print placement, Crispness, Alignment

I will also list :
Tights inseam to toe
Cost
Denier
Tall or Petite friendly

For reference in regards to size, I am 5'9"  / 175 cm and my inseam all the way to bottom of heel is 31.5" /  81 cm, hips 40" / 102 cm. The thickest part of my thigh is 23" / 60 cm and calf at  14.76 " / 37.5cm. In the visualization of the tights stretched I used a glass growler which is approx  15.5" / 39cm around.For my original review my reference for petite was 5'0" but  one of my smaller petite friends was so kind to relay some additional info regarding her experience with the lengths of some of the tights as well. She is 4'10" leg inseam 25 "/66cm and shoes size 3.5 / 21cm.

Baroque Frames and Royal Jewelry Collaboration with Sakizo

• Construction: 4  They were dyed evenly with no smell or residue. The waistband itself is pretty accommodating and the print is pretty and eye pleasing much like the Sakizo pair I reviewed. 
• Quality: 3.9 Being made of shantung polyester they have a smooth soft feel to them and felt like a good thick denier. The printing was all very well done for having such intricate details, exceptionally so since Sakizo loves to ridiculous detailing in her illustrations.. My main gripe is the wine coloring for this specific pair. I'm not sure if its the color printing or what. It is exactly like my Sakizo pair where the bordeaux is a brownish merlot color, albeit not as bad as the first pair, but still the coloring is a bit of a challenge to match. If you obtain these with a matching main piece from Baroque it should be no problem but matching it to other items may be a challenge. 
• Elasticity: 4 They were not as short as the Sakizo pair that I had but still a bit on the short side for my height.They were not very tight around my calves but not so much that I had bunching as if they were too big. The tights were really accommodating around the waistline but pretty snug around my upper thigh. I believe if you are very careful and patient with slow stretching from the ankle up, you can ease the tights to a higher resting point. They did however shrink down to size with no distortion afterwards which was great.
• How print holds up stretched: 4 The print lightens up quite a bit. But ist still pretty opaque and the print distinctive when I have them worn. They tend to fade considerably over my upper thigh but that can't be seen when wearing a dress or short pants. 
• Print placement, Crispness, Alignment: 5 The print is really intricate with bold crowns to contrast the dark tone of the tights. Placement is perfect and alignment also on point. These are great in this area.
• Inseam to toe: 29" / 73.66cm
• Denier:  80
• Cost: 35 USD
• Tall or Petite Friendly: I do not think they would accommodate anyone my height very well if they might have bigger measurements than mine and don't want the print distorted or to potentially rip after a few wears.I would be cautious if you are a taller lolita considering these. For someone smaller than me they would accommodate pretty well, though, they might be a bit big for someone shorter maybe like 5'^" or so
  
  Here below are some detail shots of Baroque tights :
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Thank you for taking the time to read this review and stay tuned for more as I round out my tights collection.
  

Review : Baroque X Sakizo - Rapunzel Imprisoned Princess

Hello and thanks for joining me in my first review of the new year! Today I am writing about the new upcoming series, Rapunzel: Imprisoned Princess, a collaboration between korean brand Baroque, japanese artist Sakizo,  and dress pattern provided by Miss Anri from Dear Margret ( tumblr for us english speaking folks. ). There's been a lot of buzz around this series since it's arrival on the Baroque webpage back in November and after the first reservation period now closed, the second wave of reservations has just recently opened. I was instantly interested when I heard these three were collaborating for a lolita related venture and could not wait to see the fruits of their hard work these past months. I've been given a rare and unique opportunity to show other fellow lolitas interested in this series some first hand info and detail on this new release and I can't wait to get started!

The dress I received was so graciously provided from Baroque and I have also been informed tights will soon follow illustrated by designer Sakizo at a later date most likely in May. I'm also told they are from the same company that hers are produced at so the quality should be better than the ones I received prior. ( The review for these tights can be found here. )

The print is very vibrant and the polyester material soft to the touch. It's different from their prior series, Ridiculous Circus, which was a crepe chiffon but still just as light. The fabric is very reminiscent of the material Haenuli used for their Whipped Cream Kitty series as a comparison.

In the following photos I have a few close ups of the actual print. There is an incredible amount of intricacy in the print and the dyeing is a lot better from the previous series as well. The black is much darker than before and true to color than with the previous release which was a big gripe of mine. It still lightens around where the fabric is folded and sewn over but for the most part it is pretty uniform in color and a lot more saturated than the older series on this kind of fabric.

The production value is a lot better as well. When inspecting the print, I could not believe the amount of time put into the small details. Sakizo really puts out a lot of impressive work, but I think she really went all out on this one. If you look at the image below you can actually see under the flowers and above the embroidery style bottom border, there is a stretch of birdseye motif instead of black negative which is not replicated anywhere else on the dress. Albeit a very insignificant addition, I absolutely adore little details like these.

There is a lot of depth to this particular dress; overlaing the vertical print is also a baroque pattern overlay which gives it an amazing tapestry feel.

You can see however in the image above, the polyester fabric does have a bit of a lighter sheen / saturation than a dress printed on cotton, but this is only visible when you're extremely close. This is also only printed on one side so if there is a snag the print can become distorted.  



In the photo below the stripe placement of the bodice to skirt isn't really aligned to look more fluid, but I think given how busy the print is, it isn't as noticeable as Pearl Drops on the Dry Flower. There are some loose threads visible, but were easily pulled away, but I left them in this photograph to show you. The birds in the cameo were the only ones found on the dress as well, which I thought was very interesting. 

I kind of wish they would have tried to match the front bodice pattern better because it looks kind of all over the place; but the detachable choker helps to break up the mismatched alignment. A skirt overlay will also be included with this series and would also help to camouflage the misalignment so I don't really feel this is a huge negative aspect to the construction of this dress.

Also I feel that it should be mentioned; that since the print is one sided this is something to also take into consideration while storing your dress. The top part of the bodice has a ruffle made of the dress fabric and it should be kept ruffled correctly otherwise it may wrinkle or pleat in such a way to show the white unprinted side which will stand out horribly in the wine, black, or navy colorway..

The lace across the bodice shown here is also pretty delicate, I would have wished it color matched each particular colorway instead of it being across the board ivory. But I think  some simple hand dyeing would be a quick fix to that if you're a stickler about that. I think it looks very different when used in the OP version so I guess it just sort of depends on your preference.

In the photo below you can also see the very top of the straps of the dress. They are lined on both sides with elastic to make them stretchy to help accommodate for different sizes instead of different buttons for strap adjustments. 

As you see, this is the main back of the bodice here. There is no corset lacing, which with this series I'm on the fence about. Usually this has been an on again off again gripe for me with cetain releases as it makes it harder for someone who is on the smaller of the measurement scale to make these dresses smaller; especially when they are inbetween the two allotted sizes. This particular series however also allows for some custom sizing while reserving. But if you can't get it customized, at least there is a bit more of an overlap with the two sizes available so it's not such a problem as other brands that also do releases in two sizes..

In this second photo above, this is the only place I found an actual illustrtaion of a girl and not just the repetition of the hair and window design. It seems the bodice has a completely different print from the skirt and that may be why they don't exactly align. I thought this was pretty cool just because it makes the print a little less princess-y and open to be a little bit more versatile.

This is the underside of the dress, with pretty straight and clean hem lines. It is however lacking a slip lining, but since this was only a sample dress I was promised that the regular production dress will include a lining.

This below is the side seam which is aligned really quite well. My finger is pointing on the line of the seam that runs horizontally across the photo. Especially with the bottom border print, it was pieced together very well.

Something to note about these kinds of dresses though. As this was just a sample dress, it's normal for snags and small imperfections to sometimes be missed which is no problem because they're samples. However I must stress that with these particular dresses, it's kind of easy to distort and mess up the print if you are careless and scratch or snag your dress on something. ( I think I mentioned earlier my Haenuli Whipped Cream Kitty is also printed on material identical to this. )  These dresses are usually printed on one sided polyester and sometimes if there is a snag it'll show up kind of like how a run in a stocking looks.

There was a small snag when giving this dress it's first once over inspection and I think it also shows in a prior photo earlier in my overview.

Overall construction: 4.7 out of 5 
Print Overall Crispness and Alignment: 4 out of 5 

Regarding print placement and alignment; I found the bodice print to be my only issue that could potentially dissuade me from purchasing this dress. But I suppose it would really depend on how ocd you are or how good your powers of distraction are with accessory placement along these points on the dress. If you're good at it I think this would be a fantastic edition to your wardrobe.. If things being just a bit off alignment wise keep you up at night, you might need to seat this one out.

All in all I think Baroque has kept up to the standard of the previous dress I purchased from them, Ridiculous Circus, ( you can read about my review for it as well as Missing Letter Keys here ) but has improved exponentially with their color printing as well as getting the print crispness clearer and sharper with each release. I hope since they are using a new company in Japan for production of their new dresses, that their popularity will boom.

Thank you for taking the time to read my review of the upcoming series, Rapunzel: Imprisoned Princess by Baroque. I look forward to seeing more of their future prints and am glad I got this opportunity to help give some insight on one of my favorite korean indie brands. A special thank you to Mana Kim and all the lovely people that poured themselves into this series and made it possible; you guys are getting better and better and all your hard work has definitely been noticed!

And lastly, I want to apologize; I have been having some issues transferring images from one device to another so there are not as many clear photos as they got drastically resized,unfortunately. I hope to have this remedied soon so until then thank you for understanding. 

If you're interested in reserving this dress the 2nd round of reservations are still open until January 22nd. I think the items still available consist of the JSK, headdress, 3 way choker, innerskirt, head ribbon, and bonnet. I think the OP slots are filled already, but you might want to contact them and double check. English and non Korean reservations are done through their facebook page found here. Below is a shot of the JSK I used for this review with everything it comes with and all of the colorways available. 

I am now in the process of making the final tweeks to my wardrobe post for this year. I hope you guys stay tuned for that and thanks for reading!

A Stocking Infatuation: Loliable Tights

So far I have covered lolita only brands, indie brands and now we come to a big chunk of my collection loliable brands. There are a lot of really artistic and amazing artists out there manufacturing tights, but whats great about loliable brands is that they don't cater to just lolita they cater to all types of fashion. I hope today by reading this you get to hear about a new brand or artist you have never heard of or rekindle some appreciation for and old favorite. Please feel free to tag or share this with other people and please by all means comment questions about any of the brands I review. I am happy to help as best I can.

My review is  made on a 1 to 5 scale, 5 being the best, in regards to: 
Construction
Quality
Elasticity
How well the print holds up stretched
Print placement, Crispness, Alignment

I will also list :
Tights inseam to toe
Cost
Denier
Tall or Petite friendly

For reference in regards to size, I am 5'9"  / 175 cm and my inseam all the way to bottom of heel is 31.5" /  81 cm, hips 40" / 102 cm. The thickest part of my thigh is 23" / 60 cm and calf at  14.76 " / 37.5cm. I wear size a 10 to 10.5 in womens or 27 cm. In the visualization of the tights stretched I used a glass growler which is approx  15.5" / 39cm around.

For my original review My reference for petite was 5'0" but  one of my smaller petite friends was so kind to relay some additional info regarding her experience with the lengths of some of the tights as well. She is 4'10" leg inseam 25 "/66cm and shoes size 3.5 / 21cm.

Merry Go Round  Candy Stripe Tights

These tights came in a little cellophane wrapping with a small sleeve with the Merry Go Round logo on them. I purchased this particular pair through a shopping service and didn't get all the little extra ads and bag but when I visited Japan this last April I purchased another pair at the store Dangerous Nude in Shinjuku, Tokyo. [ Shout out to the Tokyo International lolita comm for being the most hospitable and sweet girls ever for bring me there <3 ]

• Construction: 4.5 A good well rounded good quality tight. Thicker fibers, good color albeit darker than normal, and they are stretchy and not stiff.
• Quality: 4 I really like these tights. They are pliable, soft and the print is unique. The red was a lot more of a bordeaux than red when I received them so that was a little disappointing. The beige looked a little weird against my skin tone because I'm very not white but that is no ones fault. No smells or curious odors when taken out of the package.
• Elasticity: 5 These are pretty stretchy. As these are not really made to fit someone of my size I did pull off wearing these to a meet and walking around Tokyo all day. They are not stiff at all but the waist band probably hit maybe two inches above my pelvic shave line so they sat pretty low and my hip measurement was not lending any favors.
• How well the print holds up stretched: 3.5 / 4 I'm on the fence about this because I feel if I were a shorter person the print would not have looked so faded when stretched out. My size was not so much an issue as much it was my height. There was a noticeable amount of discoloration as the print went past my mid thigh.
• Print placement, Crispness, Alignment: 5 The side view shows the alignment of the pattern matching back to front. The overall design is on point and crisp. On par with brand tights.
• Tight inseam to toe: 26.5" / 67.31cm
• Cost: 3500 yen
• Denier: 80?? To be honest it was never listed anywhere and I also can't find it on their website or blog if you can confirm the weight I'mm change it accordingly.
• Tall or Petite friendly: Petite friendly! These tights are not made for tall girls at all. I would  strongly suggest the otks if you are interested in trying them out.

All in all these were good tights and I would recommend these for girls shorter than me. They're super cute and especially for someone into sweet or creepy cute, these are right up your alley. I am in the process of obtaining a pair of their otks and will update if these will be an option for taller girls seeing as how for otks l getting them over your whole legs is not so much an issue.

MAM Avant Garde Drop Tights

I purchased these tights at their brick and mortar shop in Harajuku Tokyo Japan in April. It was downstairs of a building and really super niche. I think its places like this that make me love their culture. The tights are wrapped in a cardboard cover with a snazzy design and then covered again cellophane. I even kept the receipt andyou can see I got these on sale.

Construction: 5 These are incredibly well made. They have a soft shimmer to them and they feel like silk on your skin. Print dye job is bright and vibrant, no smell when opening the package.

Quality: 5 Super soft texture and feel like you're wearing breathable velvet .

Elasticity: 5 Super super super stretchy. I actually kind of thought these might be too big on me before I put them on. I think I'm so used to wearing high denier tights that I almost ripped these putting them on thinking I would have to pull them taught as I go.. which you don't, they slide like a dream. 

How well the print holds up stretched: 5 They looked beautiful.

Print placement, Crispness, Alignment: 5 There isn't really an overlapping or aligning issues but I would have to check if I got any of their more lined vivid tights. Drops looked crisp when worn but sort of bled into my tattoos since the denier was so low.
Inseam to toe: 26" / 66cm but it varies. They carry different sizes for their tights so I would imagine the inseam would be different.

Cost: These are originally 2500 but I got them on sale. On their website prices range from 1000 to 540000 yen. For the special edition collaborations like the EVA x MAMAvantGarde are around 4100 yen and the 540000 Swarovski collaborations 80 denier tights can be found here.

Denier: Varies. This particular pair is only 20, but they ranges from 10 to 80

Tall or Petite friendly: Both! They accommodate for all sizes.

This is by far my favorite loliable brand. I chose to use a lower denier for this review because I have been mostly posting a lot of my thicker tights and felt I needed to balance this a little more.  I wish they would do more asymmetrical prints but I really enjoy the fact they just have some really creative prints ranging from paintings to color block to furry socks. They ship internationally and are really easy to work with if you have trouble.

Sakizo with Daughter of the Circus Tights

These tights were purchased after the Triple Fortune and Brilliant Star Event in Tokyo. This is technically a re-release but I was still pretty excited to add these to my collection. They come in a cellophane slip with artwork from Sakizo on the front.

•  Construction: 4 These are pretty well put together. The waistband itself is pretty accommodating and the print is pretty and eye pleasing. The colors said red though and the packaging says bordeaux.. honestly in real life its more purple brown red chutney.. or a brown merlot, if that makes sense.
• Quality: 3.9 The fabric is soft but it feels off and a bit scratchy in comparison to others I own. The double sided printing of the tights is really good and the tights colors are pretty vivid, but the black isn't as dark as it should be and the bordeaux doesn't look like.. bordeaux.. No odors or smells from the tights.
• Elasticity: 3.6 Snug fit. The elastic comes about and inch and a half from navel but the tights themselves are a bit on the stiff side everywhere else. Not a lot of roominess on the butt end. Sort of up in the air of how they will hold up in the long term like they might want to roll down if wearing over the course of the day. 
• How well the print holds up stretched: 5  Around the calves and thighs they were fine, a bit snug in the bum area and there was some slight fading. Pretty opaque throughout the legs though. Not going to knock off points for an area where people can't see.
• Print placement, Crispness, Alignment: 5 Placement is perfect, Crispness throughout and alignment on point. 
• Inseam to toe: 29" / 73.66cm
• Cost: 3333 Yen
• Denier:80
• Tall or Petite friendly: Petite to a tee. Above mentioned friend wanted to mention at 4'9" had an issue with the tights being baggy and bunching around her ankles as she wore them through out the day. I am on the fence as to recommend these to taller lolita. They're just a bit too stiff to my liking and I'm afraid that even at 5'7" it might not be a good idea to wear these. I would be cautious if you are a taller lolita considering these.

All in all not a bad pair of tights for the price. I probably would shell out the extra 700 yen for brand tights though if given the choice between the two. They're really colorful but not a lot of options colorwise. And not a lot of people can work brown merlot into a coord or brown tights with red and pink strawberries.. but to each their own.

These are Grimoire Une bibliothèque secrète and La Fee dans le Mounde du Verre Tights 

• Construction: 4.5 (My only gripe) Why don't these guys just settle on one uniform length for tights? I have 8 pairs of tights from them and they are all different lengths. ALL of them. Why? The world may never know. Other than that the prints are always beautiful, always super soft and they make a lot of different deniers so that's always a plus for variety.
• Quality 4.5 Great craftsmenship, attention to detail, and I've never had a pair of tights that smelled off. The fading in the black irks me with some of their prints though.
• Elasticity: 5 they are amazing and I've never had a waistband or stiffness issue.
• How well the print holds up stretched:  3.5 if its black and heavier denier / 4 if it is any other color honestly. I have no idea why, but Grimoire's black always looks  distorted / stretched out and mildly faded even on smaller people in my opinion. With cream or red and even green this is not the case. There is some small fading on the other colors but never as noticeable as it is with the black.
• Print placement, Crispness, Alignment: 4.5 I really love the creativeness behind the tights and the prints are almost always clear. Alignment is sometimes an issue on the sides.
• inseam to toe: drastic differences... 
• Cost: varies, Library was 3990, Fairy 3360, but usually not more than 4400
• Denier:  varies, secret library are 80 and Fairy Butterfly is 20
• Tall or Petite friendly: both! The sizes are pretty random in length as you can see in the first photo. Almost each pair I own are a different length which is kind of queer but there has never been a pair I could not fit comfortably.

This brand was the first place I bought printed tights from and still continue to. From when I started collecting they have always had intentional shipping so you can always order direct from them and there is no need for an SS. I was so sad I did not get to visit their shop when I visited this year and it's one of the first places to go to on my agenda when I go again. I highly recommend these  tights to people of all shapes and sizes.

Thank you for reading this segment and I hope this was useful for you as it was fun for me to do. I still have a few other pairs of tights to review and coming in the mail but I want to wait until I fully assess them before making any recommendations.

Waiting to review: Poposhop Boom Deisgn Replicas, Merona

Coming in the mail: Yoh tights, Btssb, Kira Imai, PielPie

When money allows next que: Kira Imai, Madame Chocolate, JetJ, Triple Fortune

Until next time happy stocking hunting!