Midnight Skate Outfit & Book (2010-2011)

From the website:

This fancy performance outfit is perfect for a solo skating debut:

A black skating leotard with a full, layered skirt and metallic dot details to catch the light
A matching headband with a fabric flower
White ice skates and glittery skate guards
A bouquet of fabric roses for good luck
Includes a book for girls: Your A-to-Z Guide to Trying New Things

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I love this outfit it is adorable!! The skates are a great quality but the headband was not what i expected. I love the leotard it is very well made.

Sorry I don't have pics.

[udflyer]

I don't have a pic but I think it's beautiful in person. I gave it to my dd for Chrissa as a start to the Olympics gift... Any reason to give a gift...lol. Anyway, it looks beautiful on her.

[TheGentleWarrior1]

I love this skate dress! It's a black stretch crushed velour/panne halter style skate dress with a double layered skirt. The underlayer skirt and the V trim of the halter are made of a black stretch fabric with shiny silver dots on it. The dress has a fairly large keyhole back that velcros at the very top.

The black was a great colour choice for this dress. It makes it look sophisticated and mature, while at the same time it'll also show up very well against the ice opposed to a say, lighter coloured dress like white.

The only thing that "might" be a problem to some people is the fact that it's a halter style dress with a pretty large keyhole in the back. AG is designed for girls around 8 and up and I don't really see an 8 year old skating in a dress like this. I mostly see girls eight and up competing in long or short sleeves. Not really halters. It doesn't bother me at all though. I love it. A+

Front of the skate dress.


Keyhole in the back of the dress.


Underskirt.


Headband: The headband is a cute headpiece for this outfit. It's made of the same black crushed velour-ish type of fabric and it has a cute little flower on the left side of it made out of the silver polka dot fabric.


While I think this headband is cute, it's not really practical. I've seen a few figure skaters try to wear headbands on the ice while they're competing and they always end up shoving it back up onto their heads or holding onto while they spin. So yes, pretty, but not practical. I give it a B.

Skates: Ok, I'm really disappointed in these skates. All of the AG skates I own dating back to the early 2000's have all had self laces and eyelets. These skates, have eliminated the eyelets and instead have elastic bungee cord style laces that stretch when you try to force the dolls foot into the boot. Hard and not realistic. C-

View of eyelet free/elastic tie skates.


Skate guards.

Bouquet: Adorable bouquet. I never knew there could be purple roses but hey, I think it's cute. I do wish it had more flowers though. Maybe 12 instead of 6?

Overall, I love this outfit. Apart from the skate disappointment everything else is great! Both me and Laura (doll modeling the dress) as happy figure skaters give it an A.

[Dolly]

I love this outfit. My stepsister left the flowers with us, and I plan to use them with the new Special Occasion dress.

The only con is that this outfit left LINT ALL OVER MY DOLL. It took two lint roller sheets to rid Sophia of lint.

The skates are nice. I don't like the skate guards, though.

The dress is pretty. It stretches, so it's easy to get over your doll's body.

The headband is my favorite part. It's so pretty. I think AG might have scored on this one in my book.

The flowers are simple. I love the ribbons tied around them.

Overall: A-.

[KitandKat]

Liked this outfit, saw it in person and decided I thought it looked cheap, decided to go for it anyway, and ended up liking it again. LOL. It looks better IRL than in the AG display cases, go figure.

Dress: Pretty and I like that it is a bit more mature rather than cutesy. My dolls are all older, so this fits. I like the underskirt with the polka dots, I thought that was clever and would be a fun detail when she is spinning. I was also pleasantly surprised by the keyhole back; it adds more interesting elements to the dress. I was concerned about the velour but it doesn't look cheap (I feel like sometimes velour can). I also think this might be able to work as a regular party dress too; it doesn't scream "costume" to me. Grade: A

Headband: Cute and I think it could work with other outfits as mix-and-match. The fact that it had the flower at the top didn't strike me as very realistic though, because I have heard from skaters that even adding something small like that can throw off your balance/center of gravity (especially in regards to Mia's hair clip with her white skating dress). Still, it looks cute with the dress, so I'm choosing to ignore that, lol. It also didn't have the huge tag like some of the more recent headbands (yay!). I thought it fit the doll well and it didn't seem to make her hair as static-y as I expected it too (since it is also made of velour). Grade: B+

Skates: I am sooooooo disappointed in these skates and very sad that this is probably the direction AG is going in. I have the very first AG skate outfit and those skates also lace up and have the eyelet hooks. While maybe that is a challenge for some of the younger crowd who can't tie a bow, it actually made the skates really easy to get on because you could unlace them as much as you wanted, and then tie them up tight to fit the doll's foot. These have a little fabric loop in the back to get them on, but they were still very difficult. One went on okay and the other honestly took me about ten minutes of struggling. (Luckily, I was able to get them off!) The fact that the laces are elastic did not help at all. I also don't think they look realistic and they fit awkwardly. Honestly, if AG is going to go in this direction, at least put some velcro in the back so we can actually get the skates on the doll's foot. Yes, I would honestly rather have velcro than these skates. Sigh. Grade: D

Guards: The same guards they've been using since at least Mia, but in clear sparkly rubber instead of colored sparkly rubber They stay on ok if you're not moving the doll around much. Grade: B

Flowers: Cute, typical AG flowers. Grade: B+

Overall Grade: B+ without the skates, C with the skates
I would definitely recommend this outfit but minus the skates!

With Mia's skates from her accessories:


With the skates that came with the outfit (sorry for the whacky lighting, my camera was overwhelmed because the skates were white against a white background/wall, or something like that, and wasn't doing color very well):


Back (you can tuck the strings out of the way easily, but I didn't bother because I was using it in an album and wasn't planning on showing her back):


The underskirt and a close-up of the evil skates that came with it: