The floral notebook review
Today I want to make a small review about my first order from The floral notebook.
TFN is a small indie brand based in Vietnam.
I found out about them on facebook and loved the blouses they make.
So when there was a special offer in december, I decided to try my luck.
Timeline:
6.12.14.: I wrote to Mikuha, the shop owner, and inquired about ordering a Princess of the Rose blouse. (it says on the FB page that you can order through sending a message either on FB or per mail)
8.12. Mikuha replied, apologizing for the late reply and sending me the order form to fill in. Since I wanted to use the special offer I had asked about that too and she said, she would just add the discount to the total amount when sending the invoice. Super easy!
10.12. After sending the form back to her, she replied on the same day and sending me the invoice
11.12. I let her know I paid the invoice
12.12. I got the message that she got my payment and the making time would be about ten days.
30.12. Then came nothing, not after 10 days, and not after 14 days, so i decided to write to her..
Her reply was that she shipped my order already out around christmas (she wrote on the FB page that she had shipped some items, but I couldn´t know if mine was with this batch) and would send me the tracking number at the end of the week.
12.1.15 Since I had not received a tracking number yet, I wrote to her again.
13.1. She answered, apologizing sincerely. She thought she had send me the number already or maybe the mail got lost. Anyway, she gave me the number right away and I was happy to see the parcel was already in my countries customs.
14.1. Attempted delivery, but I wasn´t home.
15.1. Finally I got the parcel =)
So I paid 45,30$/37,62€ for the blouse and tracked shipping to Germany, this was with a discount of 15%.
It was shipped out on december 26th and arrived on january 15th, not that bad.
Summary: Very nice contact, Mikuha always tried to be as fast as possible and considering the holidays, the increased volume of orders because of the special offer and her going abroad after finishing the orders, I think everything went okay. She´s running the shop alone as far as I understood and with all the stress of the facts I mentioned it can happen that the number got lost. There was no delay in the shipping itself so I´m fine with that =)
The parcel, normal paper wrapping secured with tape on the underside and this string (it was even sealed, don´t know if this was done by any post office or by TFN)
Wrapping of the blouse.
Businesscard with a hand written "thank you" note - so nice!
The blouse is like normally all of her items custom made. You fill out the order form, asking you for your measurements, and it will be tailored for you.
This also leaves room for special wishes. I wanted my blouse to be shorter than the model shown in the FB album, so I gave her the measures and also told her in the email that I wanted it to be shorter so I could wear it over my lolita skirts.
As you can see, the blouse is not really short. I absolutely love the design, that´s why I ordered it, but I was a little bit disappointed when I realised just how long it is.
I wanted the blouse to be around 48cm from shoulder, so it would be 4cm longer than my waist is. I checked the measures with a blouse I own which is the right length to wear it over skirts, and it matched. When I measured this blouse... well, you can see it in the picture.
Under a jsk it is absolutely no problem, and tucked into a skirt in can work as well, just not the way I wanted it to be.
With my favorite skirt to wear it with. I made it lighter so you can see more.
Tucked in. Again, made lighter.
I think it would work good with a highwaist skirt, but I´m not super fond of that cut.
The sleeves are as long as I wanted them to be, wide enough to be really comfortable and overall lovely.
A small issues I have with the "cuffs" can luckily easily be fixed, but I want to show it anyway.
This is how the "cuffs" are made. Two rows of small rubbers gather the fabric together to create the cuff-like appearance and give the sleeves their shape.
On the first looks, the sleeves seemed to be fine. Then I tried it on and noticed both "cuffs" to feel strange and most of all very different from each other.
This is why:
The rubbers aren´t sewn to the ends! I honestly don´t know why, it looks like they run out of rubber or something.
On this sleeve, there are 1cm difference on one side and a little bit more on the other as you can see, otherwise the sleeve is fine. Of course this part is not gathered, that´s why the sleeve felt lose.
On the other sleeve, it looks even funnier. One rubber reaches the seam, the other ends about 3cms before and the rubbers on the other side end a lot earlier. And the stitches to secure the rubbers run in totally different directions! I marked the stitches in the second pic. I have no clue what´s going on here. Since I sew myself, I would have noticed this when sewing this together and never had shipped it out with leaving the rubbers like this.
The good thing about this is, these two parts are on the inside of the sleeves and furthermore hidden under the ruffles. It´s not noticeable unless you really turn the sleeve inside out - or put it on.
I will just attach some more centimeters of rubber to gather the remaining parts and it will be fine.
The rest of the blouse is lovely!
Little tag on the inside
The ribbons to ty around your neck are secured very nice and safe.
All other seams and ruffles are fine and pretty, and so are the buttons.
I wrote again an email to Mikuha and told her about the flaws and send her the same photos I show you here.
And waited a week. Since she´s busy with her internship in a different country, I can understand some delays with emails.
After a week, I wrote her again and got a reply two days later.
She was honestly sorry about my problems with the blouse and wanted to solve this to my satisfaction. It was made by her tailor and he had messed it up, it seems.
Since I like the blouse and it is after all wearable and pretty and easy to fix, we agreed on another discount for my next order.
Which I think is a nice solution, I want another of her blouses when she opens up custom orders again and this is much easier than a refund.
So, my overall rating.
I think what happened here was a one-time mistake and Mikuha was very nice and helpful to resolve the matter.
The quality is very nice for the average price (custom made blouse for 38$ without shipping, I´ve definitely seen more expensive ones out there!) and the fit is good for the measures I gave.
Even though my first time experience was more neutral at first, I will order again and see how it turns out. I´m sure I´ll get a perfect one next time :)
TFN is a small indie brand based in Vietnam.
I found out about them on facebook and loved the blouses they make.
So when there was a special offer in december, I decided to try my luck.
Timeline:
6.12.14.: I wrote to Mikuha, the shop owner, and inquired about ordering a Princess of the Rose blouse. (it says on the FB page that you can order through sending a message either on FB or per mail)
8.12. Mikuha replied, apologizing for the late reply and sending me the order form to fill in. Since I wanted to use the special offer I had asked about that too and she said, she would just add the discount to the total amount when sending the invoice. Super easy!
10.12. After sending the form back to her, she replied on the same day and sending me the invoice
11.12. I let her know I paid the invoice
12.12. I got the message that she got my payment and the making time would be about ten days.
30.12. Then came nothing, not after 10 days, and not after 14 days, so i decided to write to her..
Her reply was that she shipped my order already out around christmas (she wrote on the FB page that she had shipped some items, but I couldn´t know if mine was with this batch) and would send me the tracking number at the end of the week.
12.1.15 Since I had not received a tracking number yet, I wrote to her again.
13.1. She answered, apologizing sincerely. She thought she had send me the number already or maybe the mail got lost. Anyway, she gave me the number right away and I was happy to see the parcel was already in my countries customs.
14.1. Attempted delivery, but I wasn´t home.
15.1. Finally I got the parcel =)
So I paid 45,30$/37,62€ for the blouse and tracked shipping to Germany, this was with a discount of 15%.
It was shipped out on december 26th and arrived on january 15th, not that bad.
Summary: Very nice contact, Mikuha always tried to be as fast as possible and considering the holidays, the increased volume of orders because of the special offer and her going abroad after finishing the orders, I think everything went okay. She´s running the shop alone as far as I understood and with all the stress of the facts I mentioned it can happen that the number got lost. There was no delay in the shipping itself so I´m fine with that =)
The parcel, normal paper wrapping secured with tape on the underside and this string (it was even sealed, don´t know if this was done by any post office or by TFN)
Wrapping of the blouse.
Businesscard with a hand written "thank you" note - so nice!
The blouse is like normally all of her items custom made. You fill out the order form, asking you for your measurements, and it will be tailored for you.
This also leaves room for special wishes. I wanted my blouse to be shorter than the model shown in the FB album, so I gave her the measures and also told her in the email that I wanted it to be shorter so I could wear it over my lolita skirts.
As you can see, the blouse is not really short. I absolutely love the design, that´s why I ordered it, but I was a little bit disappointed when I realised just how long it is.
I wanted the blouse to be around 48cm from shoulder, so it would be 4cm longer than my waist is. I checked the measures with a blouse I own which is the right length to wear it over skirts, and it matched. When I measured this blouse... well, you can see it in the picture.
Under a jsk it is absolutely no problem, and tucked into a skirt in can work as well, just not the way I wanted it to be.
With my favorite skirt to wear it with. I made it lighter so you can see more.
Tucked in. Again, made lighter.
I think it would work good with a highwaist skirt, but I´m not super fond of that cut.
The sleeves are as long as I wanted them to be, wide enough to be really comfortable and overall lovely.
A small issues I have with the "cuffs" can luckily easily be fixed, but I want to show it anyway.
This is how the "cuffs" are made. Two rows of small rubbers gather the fabric together to create the cuff-like appearance and give the sleeves their shape.
On the first looks, the sleeves seemed to be fine. Then I tried it on and noticed both "cuffs" to feel strange and most of all very different from each other.
This is why:
The rubbers aren´t sewn to the ends! I honestly don´t know why, it looks like they run out of rubber or something.
On this sleeve, there are 1cm difference on one side and a little bit more on the other as you can see, otherwise the sleeve is fine. Of course this part is not gathered, that´s why the sleeve felt lose.
On the other sleeve, it looks even funnier. One rubber reaches the seam, the other ends about 3cms before and the rubbers on the other side end a lot earlier. And the stitches to secure the rubbers run in totally different directions! I marked the stitches in the second pic. I have no clue what´s going on here. Since I sew myself, I would have noticed this when sewing this together and never had shipped it out with leaving the rubbers like this.
The good thing about this is, these two parts are on the inside of the sleeves and furthermore hidden under the ruffles. It´s not noticeable unless you really turn the sleeve inside out - or put it on.
I will just attach some more centimeters of rubber to gather the remaining parts and it will be fine.
The rest of the blouse is lovely!
Little tag on the inside
The ribbons to ty around your neck are secured very nice and safe.
All other seams and ruffles are fine and pretty, and so are the buttons.
I wrote again an email to Mikuha and told her about the flaws and send her the same photos I show you here.
And waited a week. Since she´s busy with her internship in a different country, I can understand some delays with emails.
After a week, I wrote her again and got a reply two days later.
She was honestly sorry about my problems with the blouse and wanted to solve this to my satisfaction. It was made by her tailor and he had messed it up, it seems.
Since I like the blouse and it is after all wearable and pretty and easy to fix, we agreed on another discount for my next order.
Which I think is a nice solution, I want another of her blouses when she opens up custom orders again and this is much easier than a refund.
So, my overall rating.
I think what happened here was a one-time mistake and Mikuha was very nice and helpful to resolve the matter.
The quality is very nice for the average price (custom made blouse for 38$ without shipping, I´ve definitely seen more expensive ones out there!) and the fit is good for the measures I gave.
Even though my first time experience was more neutral at first, I will order again and see how it turns out. I´m sure I´ll get a perfect one next time :)