jamiesque

After seeing dozens of photos of girls in white tennis skirts, I knew that it was this year’s must have summer piece. From Korea to Japan, the United Kingdom to the United States, everyone is wearing this new staple piece from American Apparel. But at $54 ($64 if you opt for the cute tartan version) it’s far from affordable for most people, namely me. 

When this happens, the first thing I do is check Ebay for a dupe, but I was out of luck. The cheapest faux American Apparel skirt was $26 and I was not ready to pay that much for a knock off that would take 4-8 weeks to arrive. I had already thought of all the ways I could make a white tennis skirt match my wardrobe, so at this point I absolutely had to have it. Getting desperate, I opted to try finding it on AliExpress.  Now I know for a lot of people there are red alarms going off in their heads right now. “AliExpress? That’s the one place you don’t want to buy from!” And if I hadn’t bought this skirt, I would be agreeing with you. I tried purchasing from AliExpress before but my purchase ended up being denied by Chase and it took me a week to get my money back into my account (~$200). But like I said, I had to have this skirt. 

I ended up searching “tennis skirt” and organizing the search so that only top reviewed products by highly rated shops would be displayed. If I was going the shady route, I had to protect myself a little right?

It was so worth it.

I looked through several tennis skirt product entries and finally settled on buying the one from Clothing / Accessories Supermarket because of their 99.0% approval rating an fonly $12.99 I was able to get an almost perfect dupe! The product entry for the skirt displays several of the stock photos from American Apparel along with the different skirt variations and close ups of the fabric and quality of the product.

Overall: 
This skirt is honestly the best quality dupe I’ve ever received from a China based online shop. Buying it has changed my entire opinion of Aliexpress!  My only problems with the product are the color (not really a problem more like a blessing in disguise!) and some marks on the fabric.

(Please note that for the rest of the review the photos on the right are provided by the shop and the photos on the left are my own.)

Fit: 
I ordered the skirt in the smallest size it comes in: XS. I have an incredibly small waist (22″), and their listing says that it should fit a 23.75″ waist perfectly. Given that it was around 2″ too big for me, I feel like that’s accurate. I might tailor this skirt myself and get rid of an entire pleat to make it fit me perfectly, but even without tailoring, it fits pretty well. I always have a problem filling out skirts that don’t have an elastic band so it’s not really the skirt’s fault!  My favorite part about this skirt is the length. It’s not too short and not too long. 

Quality: 
Structure wise, this skirt is perfect. The fabric used is thick and the pleats are perfectly ironed. However when looking at the details there are are few things that are off. For example, throughout the front of my skirt there are little bumps that look like something scratched the surface, and in some places the hemming jumps a centimeter. A closer inspection of the skirt also reveals that it’s slightly sheer. Not enough that you’ll flash everyone with your underwear, but sheer enough that I felt a bit awkward wearing it for the first time. Good thing I always wear pajamas or biker shorts underneath my skirts.  Besides those little mistakes, I realized that the skirt wasn’t actually a pure white, but a Crayola baby powder white. This can be seen in the contrast between the pure white button and the rest of the fabric. Although I was expecting a pure white, I’m not disappointed. I was hesitant in buying something in a pure white because I’m more suited to warmer shades of white, and this was a pleasant surprise.

Price: 
I think I’ve already made it clear how amazing I think the price of this skirt is! While $13 can be a little expensive for some people (broke college students like me ), I think that it’s honestly a great deal. Forever 21 has skirts that range anywhere from $10 to $30, and while it’s my favorite shop, the quality isn’t that great. However this skirt fits on the lower end of the spectra and the quality is a lot better than anything you could find there. I’m the type of person that loves to brag about bargains and trust me, I’ve been bragging about this deal a lot! 

Shipping: 
I had a lot of beef with my USPS guy for messing up my delivery and getting this skirt to me late, but that’s completely on him  and not the company I bought this skirt from.  Shipping was not only free (words I love to hear), but compared to Ebay the shipping time was a lot quicker! Usually products from Ebay take one to two months to arrive at my house, but this skirt only took two weeks. I was so excited when my package tracker said it was in Brooklyn… and so upset when my delivery man decided to not ring the bell or knock on the door before deciding that no one was home and leaving a redelivery slip… Can you tell I’m angry? LOL But regardless of my USPS troubles, shipping was fast and free!

In addition to this skirt I also bought a few more things off AliExpress so please look forward to my reviews of those! Tomorrow I will be posting a white tennis skirt style post for those of you that already own one of these beauties, and sometime this week or early next week I’ll be posting a style video onto my youtube! Like always, this review was not sponsored by Clothing / Accessories Supermarket, but I did notify them that I was going to use their product in a review. If you’re interested in buying this skirt yourself, here’s a link to the product on AliExpress. Tell me if you bought one so we can become outfit twins!

If you enjoyed this review and want more please like this post~  I’d also love to hear what you would wear a white tennis skirt with!

Finally, a big thank you to my friend Emily for giving me the motivation to write this post. You guys can read her blog at http://norepeatsorhesitations.com.