I so wanted to make this costume work, and as other costumes by this company get rave reviews and some of the high ended catalog it is featured gave me high hopes despite the few reviews on Amazon that were mixed. EPIC, EPIC fail on many levels. Gotta send it back, and if there was any way to make it work I would. The two is my overall satisfaction with the costume assuming it fit, not factoring the fit issues which I will go into. Yes, the costume came in a nice little hanger bag --1 star there. Costume indeed looked somewhat like the picture-- there is your 2 stars. 3 for quality, 4 perception of value vs money spent, and 5 for overall satisfaction are missing. I have bought several much less expensive costumes in the 40-70 dollar range that I felt actually looked higher quality. There is a petticoat, a cheesy crown and a neck choker but that brings overall value up to like $70 for this get up at full retail at most in terms of value/quality in my mind. The costume might be actually better quality but the combo of lace, silver shiny fabric and that odd color of purple (that was not very true to what was on my computer screen, more of a cranberry purple in real life) combined with cheap velveteen just make the whole costume look and feel chinzy and cheesy. As others stated the lace is itchy, but they failed to emphasize the ugly. It might truly be higher quality in construction but at the end of the day nobody will tell the difference between this theatre grade costume from the top shelf items at Walmart. You will not win any costume contests from this get up unless you are at a bordello (this from a woman who gave good reviews to a french maid costume a few days ago).

 I had read the issues in regard to fit and was prepared to spend some money at the seamstress to make the costume work to have one good costume to wear year after year, well this is NOT that costume.

Now on to size. I am still trying to picture the woman who they used for the fit model for this costume--most likely a freak of nature. I am about 5 foot 10 and this costume was just to the point where it might be slightly to long, on the other hand the waist on the same dress is very high (3 to 4 inches above where it should be). So you need a very short waist and have long, long legs if you do not want to have to have this altered--assuming you got even close to the right size to begin with. In real life clothes I fall into a size 16. There is no way the 2X I ordered (which has been fine with several other costumes) would zip beyond half way even if I wore a corset that did not let me breath. Honestly, after reading the reviews I had kind of wished I ordered a 3X but I am pretty certain the 3X would not fit either and would also be way too small.
Please if you want this costume despite the reviews go 2 sizes up, not just one. Others have complained about the arms being to tight, the arms on my costume fit snuggly but well, but my arms are pretty thin. I found the cut of the neckline and shoulders to be akward. Someone complained of the issues they have with a small bust. This was not my issue, but I found the entire upper quadrant--(as far as I could zip nd pinned back to get the total picture if I did order up) really has no support or structure which for a classy but sexy costume is yet another...epic fail. I am overweight but have very standard measurements--not super wide hips, oversized girls and so on. As others have implied there is something very funky about the cut of this outfit and the only person on earth I can see this fitting is a six foot, extremely thin man with a push up bra and a a high waisted cincher.

Uggh. What to be for Halloween now?