Brocade Holiday Dress + Charm (2013)

[Shelby]

I got The Brocade Holiday Dress in the mail today, it is meant to be for my #30 but I tried it on Grace instead and it looks beautiful! The fabric is a very nice quality and I didn't realize it had little stars in the design, its cute! I tried to Get pics in some different lighting, its really hard to properly show the color of this dress. Definitely Give the whole outfit an A+

~Mod edit to remove dead image links~

[OneGirlManyDolls]

I bought this dress and the matching girls dress in size 6 for my daughter to wear alongside her doll of choice for our Christmas 2013 portrait send out.

I normally am not interested in the matching girl outfits sold by AG because I feel like they are so expensive but this one is one that I was really excited to see and purchase. It was kind of a no-brainer for me despite the price point because I have been wanting to get a gold dress for my daughter (for the holiday) for the past three years. There always seems like an abundance of silver dresses around the holidays and on the rare occasion there is a gold one, it is too bright or gaudy for my taste. The AG matching set though is just the perfect amount of metallic gold for it to look almost elegant and definitely classic for a holiday outfit. 

The girls dress is exactly like the doll dress set except for the fact that it didn't come with tights or shoes. What you see my daughter wearing are of our own pulling together - the tights are from Gymborree and the shoes are from Payless. Everything else though is pretty much the same.

The material of the dress is nice and light without it feeling cheap. The fit of the dress looks big on my daughter but that's more because she is a bit of pipsqueak of a child and so the dress is a little big for her - she is between a size 5 and 6 right now. You might note that the skirt of the dress kind of balloons out from the bodice and that's in part because the dress is brand new and the tulle underskirt is still quite stiff though the skirt of the dress is supposed to pouf out like that I think. 

One of my favorite things are of the dress is the color of it. The gold coloring is so soft and is almost what I call an "old gold" without it being too muted or brassy looking. The fabric of the dress has beautiful subtle sheen to it that helps to gently bring out the gold brocade patterning (that is stitching into the fabric) and while I don't think the fabric is silk, it has a look to it that suggests that it is that - it almost makes me think of a more smooth dupioni silk.

I didn't think that I would like the stars within the dress patterning or the headband that much but once I got it out of the package and have photographed it all, I feel like neither is all that bad on top of the fact that I feel like it adds a touch of girlish whimsy to the outfit that would otherwise leave it looking too serious without those fun touches.

All in all, I LOVE this dress set and I know my daughter is going to get a lot of wear out of it this season. I don't know that I will ever like a holiday doll-girl set as much as this one because I have been looking at them for a while and this is the first one that I didn't even have to think twice about in order to plunk down the money and get it. 

I give both the doll and the girls dress an A+.

[Impy]

I'm still not sure who will end up wearing this for the holidays, but I thought I'd try it out on Sonali first. I think it looks lovely on her.

The dress itself is very soft and I love the subtle glitter given by the metallic threads (see any of the gold stars). I adore the velvet stripe around the waist.


The back in case that's your thing.

The tights are pretty thick and went on easily. The shoes are kind of blah, though. They don't add anything to the outfit and while I get that they were going for understated and the colors technically go with the dress, it still feels mismatched. I wish they had a bit more sparkle.



The outfit does need something for the hair and I like the design on the headband, but the actual band is too short (it keeps popping off her hair if you look at it funny, let alone touch it) and it also suffers from an extreme case of "super long tag" syndrome. I wound mine around the band and taped it there until I decide whether or not to cut it off.


And the underside which is more gold than the dress, though it wouldn't show up in my pictures. It adds an extra touch of "oooh, shiny!" to the dress.

Overall, I give the dress an A+ because it fits very well (though I sincerely doubt mine would fit on my chubbier girls) and it is beautiful. The shoes get a B and the headband gets a C+ because it doesn't really fit all that well and it has that horrible tag.

[Danibananni]

I bought this dress specifically for Mia. This is literally 15 minutes after I opened the box.

[dragonflybg]

I bought this dress with my #30 in mind and I think it looks great on her. I tried it on Saige also, but I didn't like it on her at all.

The dress itself is a nice thick material. The tights are standard fare, and the shoes are cute. I really love the roses on the middle, they are a nice size.  The headband is ok, but I think the sequin flower part is kind of ugly. 









Please excuse the crappy cell phone pic. I wanted to at least show you what it looks like on Saige.




Added 12/21/21:  Here are a few updated pictures of this dress on Luciana.  The roses around the band are still my favorite part, so delicate and pretty.

[saraya]

This is one of those outfits that I didn't think much of based on the photos, but once I saw it in person I had to have it. I love the color, it looks great on many dolls. The dress is thick and well-made. A+

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[Simone]

A very pretty dress! I had trouble deciding who to give it to at first, but after trying it on several girls, I thought it looked best on Kylie. The gold color is pretty unique and I really like the pattern as well. The tights are easy to use and the shoes and headband go well with the dress. I'm sure Kylie will wear it for Christmas again next year!