New Release: Putumayo Magic Frame
Before I get to the lovely frills, I just want to give a couple words of caution. While I love a lot of the designs Putumayo puts out, they are a punk lolita brand and their target audience is younger teens. Because of this, their clothes are a lot shorter than most other brands. Like seriously short. I’m 162cm tall, and most Putumayo is much too short for me to comfortably wear alone and call punk lolita (many lolita would argue it’s too short to be called lolita at all, but that is a different argument all together). So, when I wear Putumayo, I usually layer it. The other thing people will likely notice very quickly is that Putumayo costs a lot less than other major brands. This is totally, true, and even more so when they have sales. There is, however, a trade off. Putumayo is generally making more casual clothing, and they use cheaper construction methods and materials, in my experience. I’ll do a review later of the velveteen OP I already have from them, but lets just say, I’m not going to order this series unless it goes on sale so that I can easily recoup what I paid if I get it and am not pleased with the material quality. If I lived in Japan and could just pop into a shop and look at the dress it would be totally different. Now, all that said, don’t get me wrong, they make nice clothing, I like their cotton stuff, and their cutsews are awesome. It’s just not the same class as an elaborate dress from Innocent World, for example (and it’s not supposed to be).
The Crown Emblem Cardigan isn’t actually part of this series, but it just came out this month, and I happen to think it’s super cute so I tucked it into the mix as well. I love the print on this (it comes in black x white, red x gold and navy x white in the OP, and the same colors, plus black x red in the skirt (the bloomers under the skirt are sold with it as a set, but they are not attached) and I actually saw it in a picture on Harajuku Heart’s Facebook page a bit ago where they were featuring another brand and it was hiding in the background and it looked really cute in their snapshot. I guess this is one of those times where I’m just going to either have to wait and see if someone else gets it and can tell me what the fabric is like… or take a gamble on it. Oh! one more thing to note, for anyone who’s clicked through to Putumayo and is marveling at the generous measurements; the OP may not have a zipper at all; the last shirred one I got from them didn’t. So the measurements have to be big enough to go on over your head or over your hips for you to put it on. ^^;
and here are the Putumayo coordinates:
All in all it’s a cute little series, and it’s great for the winter holidays, IMHO.