East Meets Dress Review

I'm going to summarize the key points here for those who want an answer fast: East Meets Dress is a TaoBao/AliBaba reseller complete with greenwashing and no transparency about where they get their stock. 0/10, I won't order from them ever again.

    I posted on my DIY (mostly crochet) instagram @kasey__creates that I recently got engaged. My fiancé is from Shandong Province, China and I was taken with the idea of having a Qun Kwa as my wedding dress. Naturally, I had been browsing months before the engagement and already picked out the Cleopatra Qun Kwa from a company based in LA called East Meets Dress. My stepmom and dad wanted to pay for my wedding dress so we bought the one I had been eyeing for at least the last three months.

Photo of Cleopatra Qun Kwa from EMD Site

    My gut told me to order the Qun Kwa & Hairpin set from their Etsy, not their main website. I also submitted payment through PayPal for the purchase protection. It started off well, I was pleasantly surprised that their customer service emailed me on Easter Sunday after I ordered to confirm my size. They suggested I order a larger size, but I politely told them to stick with what I originally asked for.

    In addition to having a Qun Kwa I was head over heels for, I ordered from East Meets Dress because I liked that they are an Asian American owned company and I want to do my part to support AAPI owned businesses. It was a green flag to me that they have a brick and mortar wedding boutique in LA. I loved that having a dress that pretty would be much less expensive when compared to traditional western dresses, so we could put more money to something like catering expenses. Most of all I was so happy that we could have my wedding dress be an incorporation of my future husband's culture.

    According to their website, East Meets Dress makes each dress as it's ordered to "reduce inventory waste" so it may take 4-6 weeks for the dress to show up. I really liked this idea, because environmental impact is something that becomes more and more important to me as time goes on. However, this claim about "made to order" is greenwashing and gives a false impression of quality, in my opinion. 

    Why? Because I have found identical dresses on Ali Express for a much lower price. It is likely they buy from a wholesaler on TaoBao or AliExpress. If you know anything about the garment industry in China and the mistreatment of the Uyghur people in Xinjiang province, you can see pretty clearly why this lack of transparency is icky. They are upcharging for garments made in typical factory conditions in China and fabricating a brand story to give themselves the air of a high quality, environmentally friendly, boutique experience. In my opinion it's all marketing and fluff; the only thing that sets them apart from other bridal shops, including one specializing in Asian wedding wear in Atlanta, is the fact that they sell Qun Kwas and other traditional Chinese wedding wear online (which is a great selling point, actually).

    As an example, this Qun Kwa is almost identical to their Victoria Qun Kwa, the shade of red is just a little off in the photo. I have also seen several similar cheongsam styles to what EMD sells on Amazon. This post isn't about dupes, however, so I won't be linking any of these dresses:

Image from Chinese Wholesaler

Victoria Qun Kwa from EMD site

    At last three weeks later, I get the shipping notification. I was so damn excited. Our wedding isn't until June 2023, but I still could not wait to try on the dress. It arrived quickly enough, I think it took maybe like a week from California. When I opened the box, though, that excitement quickly dissolved into panic and disappointment.

    It was rainy where I live the day it was delivered, and neither the skirt or jacket were wrapped in any kind of plastic, just tissue paper. Their packing boxes are also really poor quality, soft cardboard. The contents were thankfully dry, but unfortunately that's not where the problems ended.

    The first thing I noticed: the top two buttons missing gold paint, the second one from the neck was falling off (and since these photos has fallen off). Additionally, the buttons were cheap looking plastic knots instead of the metal gold filigree beads on their website. They didn't provide a spare button in case something happened to one.

Loose Button

Missing Paint

    So at this point anxiety brain takes over and I begin to search the rest of the Qun Kwa for flaws. It wasn't hard to find several others. I have been sewing since I was a pre-teen. I noticed immediately on the jacket that silver basting stitching was left in (it was used to mark the darts). The lining of the embroidery panels on the skirt extended past the fronts by 1/4", meaning it was either cut too big/leftover from a larger size, or an incorrect seam allowance was used.

Silver basting stitching

    The skirt had a white, chalky stain on the inside. Tailors chalk, I thought at first... but it was in a weird place and clearly wasn't marking any hems, pleats, or seams. Combined with the damaged buttons, I was almost certain that I had been sent a dress that had been try on sample.

White chalky stain

    What I did in response was definitely overkill-bridezilla-karen. The only thing I can say in my defense was that I honestly felt like I'd been scammed. I expected a brand new Qun Kwa and I was sent something that had obvious defects. It also took quite a bit of insisting on my part to get them to send a pre-paid return label for a mistake that was not my fault (the customer is normally responsible for return shipping).

    I will spare further details, but after some deliberation I opened a PayPal dispute. After, East Meets Dress encouraged me over multiple emails in multiple phrasings that they would not help me unless I close the PayPal case. There were no promises of any other assistance from them like doing an exchange for the ruined one's place and inspecting it before it goes out. Like, it was my wedding dress... I still needed a wedding dress! It really felt like a "return the dress, bye, next customer. Order again if you want it so bad, whatever." Their customer service was extremely lacking through everything after the initial order. Something told me to keep the case open, and I did. PayPal decided it in our favor, likely EMD detracted from any rebuttals they made by trying to handle things outside of the PP Resolution Center.

    At first I felt guilty about keeping the case open, but my future husband pointed out that the person packing my order saw the condition the dress was in and they still packed it up and sent it. He said, "they had their chance to do this right and they didn't." He was right, this was completely unacceptable. A backorder/delayed shipping notice would have been an acceptable alternative to sending me something damaged! I would gladly have waited two or more additional weeks for a dress of the promised quality. Our wedding was an entire year away. So, that's why in the end I just left the situation up to PayPal and accepted a refund for a product I didn't return.

    If you want to order a Qun Kwa or Cheongsam/Qipao from this company: don't. If you can't help yourself, use a payment method with good purchase protection. I recommend you just buy it at the lower price from AliBaba or from TaoBao using an agent. Or, if your budget can swing it, get a vintage Qun Kwa or wedding qipao. If you are able to, have your traditional wedding dress made in your home country (although that is a way more expensive and time consuming route).

-Kasey-

---End of original review, see edits below---

    Edit from 6-6-22: Y'all I have to confess, I am heated. As you see below, I found the dress that I bought on Ali Express. It was at 200% markup.

The "Cleopatra Qun Kwa" on Ali Express

    If you like one of their Qun Kwa or Qipao I recommend you check a wholesaler marketplace for what you are interested in and save yourself some money. You will still have to wait about 4-6 weeks for your item, which is the same as the EMD timeline.

    If you purchase through AliExpress or even from EMD, I encourage you to do so with a payment method that has great purchase protection and high levels of security like PayPal.

Legal: This post is not meant to slander or defame the owners of East Meets Dress. Any claims about their processes or practices herein are alleged. This post is an opinion piece/honest review and should be taken as such.