[Bodyline Review] Triple Bow lolita shoes (shoe259)

Triple Bow lolita shoes [link]
Shoe259
("dpink" aka Dark Pink)

Heel height: in (5.8cm)
Front platform: in (1.3cm)


I'll be completely honest outright. I've always thought these shoes were ugly. TOO sweet for my taste. I like cute things and bows as much as the next sweet lolita but my personal style falls on a weird line between sweet and classic. So these shoes with their giant clown-esque round toes and large bows all over were never something I thought I would be buying.

And then cosplays I want to do start getting planned for and I go in search of shoes. And these ended up being the closest in style without breaking my bank for what I needed. The cosplay is of Ranka Lee from the second Macross Frontier movie "Sayonara no Tsubasa"- namely her "Niji Iro Kuma Kuma" outfit. Aside from heavily altering some heels or finding other shoes I opted for an option I seemed less likely to hurt myself trying to walk in ^^;; (I'll talk more about these shoes for cosplay use once I make posts and progress on that.)


(There were some issues with shipping I'll detail now. Feel free to skip if you want to read about the actual shoes. I'll mark it for you too!)

These took their sweet time getting to me. I ordered them February 9th using the free AIR option. Bodyline was really prompt about shipping them out as they left their hands the next day (on the 10th). The problem that I've been having with packages from Bodyline lately though have been at the actual port as opposed to Bodyline themselves. These things sat there waiting to be sent to America with the tracking info saying "Dispatch from outward office of exchange" from February 14th until the 22nd- which is when it was scanned and things changed to "Arrival at inward office of exchange." They then say in customs for another 11 days and I received them on March 5th.

I know other's have been speculating that Chinese New Year as bogged down the ports and that seems like a very real possibility. However the actual state of the parcel I ended up getting makes me wonder if mine got lost or just ended up in the gross bottom of the bin.

The plastic packing famously used by Bodyline to ship items in has an innumerable amount of holes in it. I also had a few bits of gravel stuck to it and even touching the thing to open it left dirt on my hands. I had to wash my hands after removing the bag to which I discovered the box was 10 types of messed up. Torn wherever it could be, dented, smashed, and just in overall bad shape. The silica packed also somehow opened and the little plastic bits were rolling around all inside the box. The shoes were NOT wrapped in tissue or any sort of packaging and there are some pretty bad scuffs and dings on them. Most notably on the right shoe at the hell where there is a giant red scuff mark.

If the Bodyline envelope wasn't still sealed like it should be I'd have thought someone at customs took these and wore them for a week! Did I get shoes someone returned to Bodyline or something? I thought they didn't accept exchanges or returns? *-* how did these get THIS mucked up? Out of pure curiosity I did end up going through Bodyline's website to try and see if any models recently wore this style and color of shoe in their pictures but came up empty handed... hrmm.

I do want to say though that this is one of the ONLY times I have gotten something from Bodyline is such a condition and even then it's not as though the shoes are ruined. I'm going to be painting and altering them and wearing them around a con and to photo shoots so I'm not too upset with the condition as I am just baffled!

NOW TO ACTUALLY TALK ABOUT THE SHOES

Like most pleather and plastic items ordered from a Chinese factory these things -stink-. They air out rather quickly but the smell is rather strong when you first open them. The material has a nice matte finish to them to the point they almost feel chalky in texture- which honestly I found kind of strange. The bows look crudely sewn as you can see the stitches pulling along the edges but they're actually rather well made. They can be slid around on the straps to adjust the positioning. I'm going to be taking them off though so I'll need to totally take the buckle off each strap. I'm actually glad you can move them around though since you can slide them to the side or only wear one or two. You could also easily alter one into a shoe clip to clip to the toe or use them on other shoes if the straps are small enough. I'll probably be mauling at least one of them for how I'm going to alter the shoes so I'm not sure what I'll do with the others... maybe random hair clips? Haha

The back of the heel of the shoe is actually something I find really interesting. On this particular design the heel comes up really high on the back of your foot. I think it's a unique detail but I wonder how it will hold up after excessive wear as I imagine it'll just kind of bend and wrinkle and look a bit sad in the end.

The buckles are a brushed-nickle finish which I prefer over a shiny metal for accents on shoes. The heart buckles function for adjusting the strap size and have the usual snap attachments onto the shoes though looking at them more I've noticed they seem oddly big for how skinny the straps are. Size-wise they feel a -little- big but just enough so for thick socks and not enough so one would need to

Everything else construction-wise looks nice and sturdy and the typical Bodyline level of quality for shoes.