Chances are you have heard of Self-Portrait. Or maybe its just me. I want to make this absolutely clear – I discovered the brand way before it was really discovered. You know what I mean? Its a London based brand born out of Central St. Martins (one of the best design schools in the world) and I love their aesthetics. Very feminine, very romantic and wispy. A Self-Portrait dress is the perfect dress – you cannot argue with that. So whats the verdict?
The Store and Shopping Experience:
I bought this dress and a jacket from a sample sale. They don’t have a separate store but sell on Selfridges and certain other department stores. I don’t think it would be fair to comment on the sample sale experience as the Self Portrait store experience. Of course if you buy their clothing from Selfridges it will be similar to any other item you purchase from Selfridges.
The Pattern and Design:
As you can see, their designs are striking. These are beautiful dresses and of course, very popular and you can see this by how many other brands have copied this design. The Self Portrait guipura lace dresses was what sparked the whole transparent panelled dress trend which everyone from Reiss to Whistles. I loved their dresses but I saw this picture on Instagram and fell in love with this particular dress. My favourite colours, understated and still edgy. I hunted for this dress like a crazy person! And honestly, this dress was the only reason I went to the sample sale. I went in and only looked for black and white and couldn’t believe my luck when I found the dress.
The Sizing:
This is a major point of contention. I will say it: there is something very wrong with the sizing this brand uses. I am not vain and have no desire to be ‘skinny’ or ‘thin’ but I fit a size 8 for this brand. When I found the dress at the sale, I was disappointed to see they didn’t have it in a size 6 because I never thought size 8 would fit me.
When I tried it on I realised the size 8 did fit me – in fact it was a little snug. Which is absurd since I barely fit a size 6 for most brands. Their size 8 dress comes with a size 24 waist. Most other stores will show the waist for a size 8 dress as atleast 26 inches.
The weird part is that I still needed to get this dress altered to my size – since it appears to be made for women who are atleast 6 feet tall! I had to take it to a tailor to alter the torso of the dress to my size. I must say she did a fantastic job!
The Quality:
There is no doubt about it. The quality of these dresses is top notch. You know the material is of a good quality – its very heavy, the pleats in the skirt are perfect and the lace is of fantastic quality.
Of course, I haven’t had the dress for more than a year and have worn it about 2-3 times so I cannot yet talk about how long-lasting it is. However, seeing the quality I can take a guess that this is the kind of dress you keep for a long time. You take it out and wear to every fancy occasion you get an invite to. Which is exactly what I wanted and intent to do.
The Price:
A Self-Portrait dress is usually about £250 to £500 bucks each. Thats quite a bit! I will confess and say I got mine for £50 bucks and spent another £50 altering it. This is pretty much the only ‘occasion’ dress I own and will probably be wearing this to every weddingI need to wear something decent to. The price I paid is definitely worth the dress. But is it worth paying full price?
Outfit details: full-sleeve dress from Self-Portrait, silver pumps from Zara (budget and expensive), bag is unbranded and pink lipstick from MAC.
I’ll be honest – the dresses are made in China so paying even halfway three figure prices for a dress made in China just doesn’t seem like a fantastic deal to me. Of course it depends on how much you love the dress and how many time you get to wear it.
So Will I Buy Again?
Well, honestly, yes, I might. If I need another fancy dress I will probably look at the same brand. I also think for upto about £200-250 their dresses are great value. But above that is when I start questioning the value. If I find their dresses on sale I would definitely like to pick one up. ASOS stocks their dresses so keep a look out and you can pick one up with a discount code.
So did I change your mind about the brand or are you happy to have heard about it?
If you enjoyed this review, make sure you check out my review for the Banana Republic Sloan trousers and the Hugo Boss cashmere coat as well.
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– Anisha
I bought one of their dress too! The Azalea in Pink in half price! But still not as a good deal as yours! £50! Girl you are lucky!
Love the dress though I think it being long sleeves is much more wearable than mine – spaghetti stripes! Much more revealing.
I think you can even wear your dress to a date night in a nice restaurant! For sure it will impress your date!
The Azalea is a gorgeous dress. I actually didn’t even bother thinking about getting that – it would be impossible to wear often in London. How did you find the fit?
Hello!
Am about to purchase my first ever self portrait dress tho I’m a little skeptical on the sizing when I stumbled on your blog..
Pray tell, how did you know/find out about the sample sale?
Cheers!
Hi Venessa! I just keep randomly checking sample sale sites to check whats on. I recently went for a Wolford sample sale – tights for £10 each!
Where are you purchasing the dress from? Is it possible to return and get another size? Are you a very average size and build – for instance, I am extremely petite (usually petite size 4) but I got size 8 for SP and had to alter it to make it fit my torso. Alos, I am talking about UK sizes – they also sell dress with US sizing so be careful about that!
what’s wrong with made in China? sounds racist
Haha – hardly. The issue with Chinese made goods is the sweatshops used and general low quality. The people working in the sweatshops are barely paid and work in horrible conditions. I would usually not want to be a part of such terrible conditions but it is difficult. My issue is that the dress is expensive but barely anything would have been paid to the workers who help make it – that is just sad.
Nothing racist at all about that comment…..we all know that most stuff made in China is “crap” and made for buttons, so it’s only right that you would question the fact that something so expensive might not be of good quality etc etc, so don’t be such a silly girl and look a the bigger picture 🙁
Lovely dress! So classy. Thank you for the post. Very helpful. I know when I was looking at self portrait dresses, your post was helpful.
I’m normally a size US 6 but find that I have to go up a size for SP dresses and even then it fits a bit snug (depending on the style of dress). For SP dresses I wear a US 8/ UK 12. I’ve noticed that sometimes that’s the highest SP goes (I’ll find some things size U.K. 14 sometimes). Hope this helps!
Thank you Marylin. SP sizes are completely skewed – its a bit ridiculous. I definitely think they need to fix this. Which dress did you get?
Hi
Please just wondering if you could let me know the contact details for the professional you used for alteration. I have got a few pieces from Hobbs which need high quality alterations done, thanks..per Self-portrait, yes I fell in love with it after I craved a topshop lace knit dress and got to find out it was a style borrowed from self-portrait. I have toyed with the idea of getting cheaper unbranded imitations from china which abound on ebay….