/cgl/ - Cosplay & EGL

>>9650214
a handful of taobao brands are great quality, to the point that I think of them as Chinese Indie.
basically the older ones like
>Dear Celine
>Pumpkin Cat
>Boguta
>69th Dept
>Amastacia
>surface spell
are small brands who actually know their stuff and release semi-annually designs that they work on/quality check for a while until good enough for production.
They're serious and have been around long enough to have good, established relationships with reputable factories, unless the rare case in which the pieces are made in-house by them.
Some newer ones I've found to be okay are:
>Angels Heart
>Diamond Honey
>Yolanda
>Strawberry Witch
Miss Point is good but kind of basic, and Rose Melody is older and good quality, but the designs are often meh/limited skill.

Taobao is just a platform, like a lovechild of Amazon&Etsy. It's easy to hop onto though and we've historically had issues with shitty replica "brands" like Dream of Lolita etc.
These days we have a dime-a-dozen opportunist brands creating Photoshop illustrations of "prints" to woo the inexperienced--these get printed in bulk for cheap on crappy polyester chiffon by some random contract factory and then shipped out for much more than their worth.

I really liked pic related, for example, but was skeptical of the IRL product. searched for worn photos and confirmed it for crap skirt shape, not enough petti room, and bad execution of front bustle (mediocre fabric choice makes terrible-looking ruffles) bodice also looks unlined and not reinforced for shape maintenance.
I still see this colourway and get hype but then remember it won't actually look or feel nice when worn and wisely pass.