Crimson Reflections

Bodyline is a bit hit-or-miss, but they were having a sale a few months ago, and one of the items that was on sale was L511, the Checker Flower OP with Heart Apron. It was really cheap, so I figured I’d get it and see if the heart apron was any good. (Spoiler, it wasn’t. In addition to having bad lace, it’s not actually sized up for the larger size, so it fits awkwardly)

I did an unboxing / review video on Facebook live if you want my full review. But… I think the moment where I noticed there was lace on the OP sleeves kind of says everything…

“Oh, there is lace on this. “

“There is lace on this and I don’t want to show it to you…”

So, here is a close up of the sleeves lace.

It’s pretty scratchy, but, the actually tulle net part isn’t so bad, which is good, because…

It’s sewn into the surging at the edge of the fabric. This is not an ideal situation because it means that to remove the lace properly, I really have to take the whole sleeve apart. But this is a bodyline dress I paid a pittance for and… that’s more work than it’s worth.

It’s also sewn down at the edge of the sleeve. So, my plan of attack was to cut this thread at the edge of the sleeve very carefully.

The, I just cut the actual lace mesh as close to the surging seam as a possible without actually cutting the surging seam or the dress.

I used a very sharp pair of sewing snips for this (snips are like weird little scissors that look like this and are used to snip threads)

I also stretched the elastic over my fingers at I worked to minimize the chances of snagging the fabric with the point of the snips.

At the halfway point, it looked basically like this… and after about and hour of snipping thread and lace carefully (which is likely on the slower side of things), I was done.

Check out this crunchy lace I had left over…

And here is the final OP. I bought this in the 2L size which is listed as:
Length 92cm
Bust 100cm
Waist 88cm
Shoulder width 37cm
Sleeve Length 20cm

I’m 5’3″ (160cm) tall, and honestly, I think this is a little on the shorter side. It’s also pretty plain. I wouldn’t exactly say it’s a good example of a lolita dress. However, it’s a decent fabric with a nice stretch and has a back zipper. I think with a chunky white belt it would make an excellent casual wear dress for this spring / summer. Even then, I will say there is a tangle of thread on the back where the person messed up putting in the zipper that I’ll probably need to clean up at some point to prevent it from catching in the wash.

I don’t recommend buying it, but I do think removing the lace salvaged it enough for me to wear it. That said, this was a total hack job, and it only worked this well because the lace was sewn on inside the sleeves. Lace that is sewn on the front of a garment, like the front of the apron, is way harder to remove. If you just cut it out, the mess is left on the front, and you then have to sew something over it. It takes a good eye, and quite a bit of time. The apron straps have the lace totally encased inside, and that’s even harder to deal with. So, because of this, the apron might be a total loss. Maybe I can sell it as a costume piece…

Have you tried changing the lace on anything? How did it turn out? Let me know in the comments! Also, does anyone own an older version of this? Is the lace equally crunchy, or did the new bodyline owners remake it cheaper like they did with some of the blouses?