#apl longpost

Did you know that all Mary Magdalene "prints" use commercial fabric excepting Perfume Bottle (their first and only original print)? What this potentially means is that scraps of fabric featuring familiar MM motifs sometimes can be found floating around. It seems like at some point, someone found the original Rose Basket fabric and had it made into a JSK (likely by the handmade Taobao store that is known for making MM replications if the buyer provides fabric) in Mary Magdalene likeness.

The resulting item was a good attempt, especially given that the maker only had tiny stock photos to work out the general shape and print placement, but definitely there was something to be desired...

When I saw this JSK for sale, I felt that I had a decent remake project on my hands. I had already been looking for MM (or MM-like) materials for a while, so I figured I had the capability to bring up the piece to its full potential. I don't usually take on larger/i.e. actual garment projects, but this piece was a very strong case for giving it a try.

However, such projects are not without their pains, aren't they? Even with some semblance of a garment existing in the form of this dress, one may as well have been starting from scratch.

Unfortunately I didn't take many photos of the "before" dress so the pictures I do have don't really give it a fighting chance (it's so wrinkly and overexposed), but the shape was pretty much all wrong. However, it had good bones due to good fabric being used, and I knew I could make it better.

Laid flat and from afar, the JSK actually looks okay but there are numerous areas where it falls short. I'll talk about them shortly.

I was initially pretty excited to work on this project, so I pretty much seam ripped it apart right away after receiving it. Little did I know it would sit in parts in a bag for years...

Part 1: Trying to remember what I was doing 5 years ago

In terms of materials, I searched within Japan/Japanese sources using Mary Magdalene's original material terminology as reference. Unfortunately it had seemed that the original "shirurido" lining material had been discontinued, but it had a successor material that was almost identical when I bought a small amount, so that ended up not being a worry. The original lining is a little bit offwhite/ivory, so I purchased white lining and tea-dyed it. This colour will likely lighten as I wash it.

Many think that this light lining material that MM often uses ("for spring and summer" garments) is cotton, but it is actually 100% polyester! However, it does have a great hand feel and seems to have wicking properties as well, so there's no reason to discredit this poly.

Oddly, the wine rose basket specifically uses this kind of more chunky/slightly less structured braid. The other 3 colorways use a firmer type with the same wavy style. I managed to find a shop that carried both types and just bought as much as I felt was appropriate.

I was actually told that the firmer braid had been discontinued (which maybe explained why MM chose a different one for wine--there wasn't any stock of the other braid in red?) at the time (this was ~2017), but currently as far as I know the loose braid has actually been completely discontinued now and another company has picked up selling the firmer braid (maybe the machine that makes it was purchased by another company).

Dot tulle was thankfully not difficult to find. The colour matches perfectly, so I knew I had the right one 🙂

Now, let's break down the original dress.

Note that I did have the original Rose Basket (in a different colour) to use as a reference, which helped immensely.

The silhouette is obviously not quite right, although attempts were made to match seams similar to the original. The measurements are also different (likely made to match the buyer's requested dimensions) with the bodice being a little bigger. The skirt is also shorter, but I think that is just a mistake of the original seamstress.

The tulle is not very nice/cheap looking and the lace is also totally wrong. Those definitely had to go, so ripping off the lace and taking off the lining was first priority.

The lining material was a light cotton. It was okay, but cotton lining doesn't have the slipperiness of the original lining fabric so I preferred replacing it.

The lining and skirt lining would be completely remade from scratch, but obviously since I only had a dress' amount of original rose basket fabric, I would have to use what I had.

I initially focused on the skirt because it was the easiest portion to tackle as a pleated rectangle.

The original dress had the tulle sewn/serged onto the main fabric. This is...you could say, "incorrect", and changes the way the tulle sticks out of the skirt (as you can see in the comparison pictures), so I opted to just cut it off as closely to the serged edge as possible. It seemed sensible to leave the edge alone (rather than rip out the serging) since at the time I didn't have a serger of my own and the edge being already hemmed is convenient.

The original dress uses some kind of serged edge+blind hem stitch, while the replica more lazily folded over the bottom edge and used a line of stitching to secure both the braid/lace and the hem.

When comparing the length of the skirt to the original rose basket, the replica actually has more fabric folded into the seam due to the method used. Thankfully, the length of fabric used for the skirt was actually pretty much perfect when using the old hem fold and I guess the shorter appearance may have been due to other factors (cut of the bodice and length of tulle lace used maybe?).

Because it was easy to leave things as-is, I used this same hem fold and sewed the new braid onto the hem with two lines of regular straight stitch for security (two lines of stitching are consistently used on MM garments to secure braid or lace, although some older items may only have one line).

(I actually made a mistake here which I'll get back to later)

I attempt to use a method similar to MM to create the skirt lining layer. Dot tulle is cut into strips, gathered carefully (I don't have a ruffle foot so I used 2 lines of straight stitch+gather by hand since it tends to gather more evenly and look nicer than using only one, and I wanted to use some care here) and then attached to the skirt lining.

Without a serger, I used my machine's hemming stitch (it's a bit ugly, but it worked okay) and then topstitched the ruffle flat.

I also tried to take advantage of the lining selvedges so I wouldn't have to hem. Any extra fabric with raw edges I had to sew on to match the hem circumference of the original lining also was roughly machine hemmed.

The dot tulle doesn't need to be hemmed, but MM has neatly clipped the bottom edges of any tulle seams so the seam looks cleaner, therefore I did the same. (Sorry the picture seems to have turned out a bit blurry)

I can't really remember well, but I think it was at this point that I initially thought my job was done until I realized that the replica dress' pleats did not line up properly with the original. The widths were all wrong, possibly because the original seamstress had to make some modifications to the skirt pleat proportions to match the adjusted bodice measurements?

The skirt circumference and the way the fabric is cut for the skirt is somewhat different from the original dress, so I had to do some careful adjusting to get the pleats to have the same width and overall appearance as the original dress. I think some of the pleats are not as deep as they should be but you can't really tell with the final result. Such is the trouble when you have to work with what you have and there is no extra fabric available!

It was at this point that I took a break from the project because the bodice was next and that was, of course, a very daunting task. I think I had marked out some seam lines for adjustment on the front piece, and I had also decided that the back piece could remain sewn to the side back portions since they weren't too far off from the original appearance (the original back panel is actually only one piece of fabric with darts--the seamstress of the replica had used 3 separate panels for the back instead, so there are inevitable differences).

I also spent some time making new bows for the rose basket as I was not satisfied with the ones included with the dress. I don't have any pictures, but I dyed cotton sateen dark wine and that was a huge pain since red is a very tough colour to dye. I also made some mistakes with my bow making method (they were initially interfaced and used too much fabric in the middle which made them look too thick), so they were also left as unfinished pieces for a while.

Anyway, many years pass...

Part 2: The revisit

I would like to think I am maybe older and wiser 5 years on, with a more sewing expertise, but I'm not really convinced about that. Anyway, maybe I was better equipped for trying to adapt the bodice because I have a mannequin now.

I had previously had a bit of trouble fussing with the curves of the bodice flat with my fabric pieces, so I threw my mint rose basket on the mannequin and tried to match the seams carefully. Although...this mannequin might have been a tiny bit busty for rose basket and deformed the shape a bit.

Apologies for the cutout PNGs from here on out, the background was way too chaotic for me to let you see it.

It is at this point that I am wanting to put the project down again and really not enjoying working on this because trying to gain a rough pattern, and carefully match seams is not very fun and rather exhausting, requiring a lot of back and forth checking things and making sure I don't mess anything up.

After marking seams and having some confidence in the shape, I sew the front back to the sides again.

Thankfully, it seems like the pieces have enough fabric to create an original-looking bodice, but I suppose that was my expectation given that the original bodice measurements were a little larger than the actual MM dress. It's interesting to see where the original pattern cuts differ compared to how they should look and be sewn.

My first attempt at sewing the front together had a little too much of the print stripes showing at the sides, so I brought them in a little and tried again. When scrutinizing where the print is placed relative to the seams of the original JSK it once again becomes clear where the pattern cuts were a little off in the replica, but it isn't too bad and I think this result is almost indistinguishable.

There is a decent few centimetres of excess fabric at the sides (which was completely expected as the extra bodice room of the inital dress had to go somewhere), but I avoided cutting it down because it's precious extra fabric...

The only real modification the back needed was some small adjustment of the corset loops. I think I had also previously increased the seam at the very bottom of the back side panels because the original dress has this kind of "widening" (circled parts) that gives it a slight dropped waist.

I check both front and back portions, and when I am satisfied with the result I sew one of the side seams together.

Pretty much a completed bodice, the other side seam is left alone for now since zipper insertion will come last.

I can sew on the braid now. It is at this point while I am looking at the braid and realizing that is has a "right side" that I seem to have sewn the braid onto the skirt wrong (those many years ago...)

A 50% chance of getting it right and it was wrong!

While I'm sure a regular person would not care, I felt that it was worth repairing the mistake so the dress could be as close to the original as possible.

Fixed trim on the right.

I spent a few grueling hours ripping out the braid and reattaching it in the same method as before.

Braid also attached to the bodice.

I am wishing I had a complete dress by now, but unfortunately not...getting the bodice lining sorted is next...

MM's Rose Basket has a facing using printed fabric, however since I have no extra fabric to use for it and the dress I was working with didn't bother with adding that kind of detail (the original lining was just plain cotton with no facing panels at all) I decided to use this untextured rose basket fabric.

I originally considered just using the same lining fabric for the facing panel but seeing the dress laid flat with a matching printed facing is a detail that somehow enhances my enjoyment of looking at it a lot.

This fabric is from a reprint of the rose basket fabric from a couple years ago. It is also discontinued now but is very lackluster compared to the older fabric in my opinion. It is a rather thin quilting cotton and doesn't seem as vibrant as the original fabric, and has slightly different contrast colours. While you could still make a garment with it, I feel like it doesn't match up to the fabric used on the old rose basket because of the new fabric's sheerness.

However, given fabric supply limitations (i.e. I don't have anything) I think it's a decent nod to maintaining having self-fabric for the facing and will not be seen when worn.

Lining pieces are similar to the bodice pieces I traced out earlier so I used them as a reference and checked the shape with the lining panels on the original dress (on my mannequin).

The back lining seems to have a centre back seam as opposed to the outer fabric layer that had no seam/darts, and is made from 4 panels total.

Lining complete.

Next I attach the bodice lining to the main bodice piece, along with the straps. I mark where the straps should go based on my reference rose basket, sandwich them between the bodice pieces, pin and sew.

I left the straps as-is from the original replica dress. These are made from two strips of fabric sewn on each side, vs MM having used one strip and folding it in half. Just a different way of achieving the same thing, I guess. Of course I would have preferred the method to be "same as the original" but once again, no extra fabric... (I think I may have asked my SS to ask the seller if they had any extra and to include it if so, and the seller said they didn't have any...)

I also sew an elastic channel (sort of like topstitching) all the way along the top of the bodice about 1cm wide for later.

At this point I think that I seem to have pleated my skirt lining wrong. however, I may have just misinterpreted the other side of the lining pleats as the side that was "wrong", so I ended up having to repleat multiple times in my own confusion.

[it hurt itself in its confusion!]

Anyways, after that fiasco I baste the pleats down and attach the skirt lining to the bodice lining so I can check the length.

It's coming together!

I sew the outer skirt to the outer bodice fabric next, a step that makes me very nervous because if the seam shaping is wrong I feel that it could mess up the silhouette of the dress quite severely. To try to diminish this, I baste the bodice in sections to the skirt by hand, frequently checking beside the original dress.

I ended ripping out my basted skirt pleats and re-pleating the entire back because I didn't feel like the pleats were aligning well.

After sewing the outer skirt to the bodice, I once again check that the lining length is okay (it was a bit too long at the back), finish inner seams etc.

I added the elastic to the channel I added earlier now. Unfortunately I think I should have encased the elastic while stitching in the channel because it was a huge pain to get distributed properly and I had to unpick some sections to get the elastic to spread out and then carefully try to invisibly re-stitch. The elastic is gathered more around the armpits/sides than the front and back.

Last task is attaching the zipper. The dress has a completely encased invisible zipper with no zipper tape edge showing from the inside. It seemed like the lining was sewn on separately after the main fabric was sewn to the zipper, but I ended up folding over and seaming the inside by hand because it seemed too complicated for me to sew the lining to the zipper cleanly with my machine at my current ability level.

Zipper attached, definitely a lackluster job... I don't have a proper zipper foot and the cheap plastic invisible zipper foot I have is definitely not helping with keeping the zipper allowance even. I hope to fix the skirt seam alignment issue here and sew the zipper seam (especially near the top) closer to the fabric, but I'm not entirely sure if I'll ever be motivated to do that since the dress is now "wearable".

I actually also carelessly clipped the excess zipper tape at the top thinking that was what I should be doing even though it seems like MM has cleanly folded it in on the original dress 😢 (can't attach a photo as I'm pushing the post image limit as it is)

Since it was kind of getting down to the wire to the day I wanted to wear this dress, that was when I roughly finished/handsewed the lining to the zipper tape on the inside so the dress can be worn without any terrible consequences. What I should do next is fold in all the upper seams nicely, actually machine sew the lining to the zipper tape so the seam is clean, sew in a hook and eye to the top of the zipper, and add threads to secure the lining to the inside of the skirt + loops for the ribbon belt, but as of now that has not been done.

Dress finished (?) (how does it look beside the real rose basket now...?)

Unfortunately, I feel like I'm not entirely satisfied with how this turned out because although I had tried hard (especially at the beginning) to have clean work, as the project went along I think a lot of places ended up sloppy (like stitching lines on the inside), and the final piece still didn't end up exactly like the original (the bodice seems to be a little shorter somehow but I had no extra fabric especially along the side panels to make it longer, so I think it's a point that I can eventually accept).

Anyway...to finish off I finally add the lacing ribbons and prepare the detachable ribbons.

For the bows + ribbon belt, I have a length of cotton satin ribbon and finished off the bow brooches I started previously. For whatever reason, mint rose basket has burberry material bows, but I believe all the other colourways use sateen bows so I used cotton sateen for these. The original wine dress did come with a long, wide poly satin ribbon and two detachable small ribbons, but I have no idea where I put those relative to the dress and I didn't really like the way they looked anyway.

I took my old handmade bows apart to fix their dimensions (they were slightly too long) and also fixed how the middle fabric was folded, and then sewed them to some nice sharp brooch backs.

While ironing, I noticed that apparently I didn't rinse the fabric well after dying and adding water made the bows bleed. Not great. (I later soaked them in dye fixative and the bleeding issue seems to be better now)

These pictures use the bows from my Valeria JSK (which seem to be approximately the same wine tone), but it's always nice to have a separate set for each dress. I may remake yet another set of bows with a different cotton satin (slightly thinner, not self-dyed) eventually.

Finished, or at least as finished as things are going to get for now.

As I will be wearing this JSK in future outfits, I'm a bit torn as to how I will tag and label it in posts. The design for sure is Mary Magdalene's, and this dress is a big tribute to it, but it's also definitely handmade and not legitimate MM. I'm actually not even confident about labeling it handmade by myself because I didn't technically hand make all 100% of it (at this point, only the initial cutting out of pieces was not my own, but somehow this lack of initial patterning and cutting step bothers me and makes me feel like I didn't put in all the work a handmade piece usually would be). I will probably have a hard time not adding some additional comments each time it comes to adding a label to it in future photos.

Anyways, now I have Rose Basket at home.

You can check the unboxing video here (on tumblr) or on instagram here.

I'll note that Innocent World also has a JSK series called Arabesque Rose, which Mary Magdalene's Arabesque Rose is not to be confused with!

Mary Magdalene has 3 Arabesque Rose releases, all with slightly different design adjustments:

The initial release, Arabesque Rose Jumperskirt (2014), in 4 colours:

Caramel Meringue

Iris

Navy

Offwhite (mail order limited colour)

(this probably means that offwhite was only sold online via Mary Magdalene's webshop—i.e. physical stores carrying MM such as Atelier Pierrot did not stock the colour.)

Arabesque Rose Midi Dress (2018/2022), in 3 colours:

Caramel (It's listed simply as "caramel" via the add to cart area, but in the image description the name remains "caramel meringue")

Iris

Navy

Note that these stock photos all appear to be the actual dresses/colourways, no photoshop recolouring this time!

This dress was originally presented for reservation after the Le Panier event (little more info about this on my blog) in 2018. I believe it could be reserved via the le panier webshop or via DM to their social media account (weibo or others).

MM had also brought a sample navy JSK to the event for people to look at before reservations opened. (Arabesque Rose was not offered during the event like Faltetto, only afterwards.) I believe that at some point, Aria Fleur was available for reservation as well, although I am less sure of the time period and colour/variation availability.

Due to delays in shipment, those who pre-reserved were given what Iooked like a 2-way head bow/hairclip for free (the design is similar to what I received but without the lace)

The dress design differed significantly from the 2014 release in 3 obvious ways:

longer "midi" length, 5cm longer than previous

no back shirring panel (making the bodice design more similar to Rose Basket/Valeria/Felicia Rose/others which share the same cut)

no rose lace accent at the hem, only tulle (again, similar design as the JSKs noted above)

other differences:

3 detachable bows (2 small, one large) were included instead of 2, and a simpler, straight-edged design than previous (the 3 bow style is also similar to the dress designs named above). The larger middle bow is a bit long.

For Iris only: the contrast braid has been changed to a blue-gray, and the dot tulle changed to light pink.

In 2022, Mary Magdalene offered the dresses for sale on their website/webshop as "stock", ready to ship. My guess is this is stock made during the same time as the Le Panier reservations that MM had been planning to release on the website, but was delayed.

Around this time MM also added Arabesque Rose Ribbon (2022) to the webshop. This was only available in offwhite and is an adapted version of the KC that was released with the 2014 JSKs, with pink lace accents instead of brown. Perhaps MM didn't have enough offwhite fabric left for a JSK so they used it to make a few KCs instead.

Since to my understanding the original fabric had been out of print for many years, these JSKs were likely made from fabric leftover from the 2014 production cycle. However MM must have still had even more fabric left, as they released Arabesque Rose Midi again in 2025:

The price was increased from previous, but it's understandable given increased demand for MM & the increased cost of production (¥27800/¥30024 tax-in for 2014, ¥28500/¥30250 for 2022, ¥42000/¥46200 for 2025)

The release included the same 3 colours as 2022:

Caramel

Iris

Navy

Compared to the 2022 version:

Caramel Meringue now uses Chocolat coloured braid (changed from the gold beige), and the detachable ribbons for both Caramel and Navy are "dark chocolat" (changed from "chocolat" last time)

All other listed details seemed to be identical to 2022, with the same stock photos used.

But wait!

If you watched the unboxing video already, there is another surprise difference...the JSKs aren't "midi" at all!

After a reservation period in late October, with the dresses scheduled to ship in November~December (delayed from this estimate, but that's hardly a surprise for anyone purchasing from MM these days), buyers were notified of a production error in late December: the dresses were made 5cm shorter than initially specified.

Which means that the dresses are in fact the same length as the original Arabesque Rose JSK (+ other well known MM designs sharing the same cut). It's unclear whether or not this was due to lack of fabric or due to the factory making a mistake/possibly being given an older pattern or spec for the shorter cut.

In any case, the notification also mentioned a few key points:

The fabric has been discontinued by the manufacturer and there is not enough left to remake the dresses at the proper length (as would be normal protocol)

If the shorter length is not desired, it is possible to cancel and refund.

A free headdress (design depending on remaining fabric) is offered as an apology for the error.

It makes sense that MM wouldn't be able to have more fabric manufactured this time, but I hope they can have it reprinted some time in the future (as they were able to for Marine Rose) as it is quite a beautiful fabric design!

For me, the length difference didn't matter at all and is in fact the ideal since where the shorter length hits is actually my preference.

Comparing the colourways:

These KCs are from 2014.

(note that while it may look like I own copious AR JSKs, most of these are not mine—the 2014 Caramel JSK/KC has been generously loaned from a friend, the Iris JSK is not intended for me/I will likely not be keeping it, and offwhite is a fabric swatch)

Even though MM gave matching KCs for the dresses, somehow I also have the 2014 navy, iris, and offwhite KCs collected from long ago. Funny story about the iris KC actually...I purchased the offwhite KC from Closet Child but they sent the wrong one (iris, with the colour clearly written on the original tags). When I contacted them about it, they said I could just keep it and they'd send the offwhite in my next order 😭

A flat length comparison of 2014 and 2025 releases. Starting from the top of the bodice, the main fabric of the skirt ends at the same point. Unfortunately I do not have a 2022 Midi JSK to compare, but at least it can be shown here that the length is the same as 2014. I also compared the hem circumferences and they are overall the same (yes, even despite the shirring on 2014 caramel—seems the skirt pleat depth is adjusted somewhere for this).

The back—of course, 2014 has shirring and 2025 does not. The lacing is different to accommodate the change, and the pleats around the shirring are longer/wider as well.

The bows of the 2025 AR are more similar to my other MM pieces of the same cut (mentioned previous), which supports my personal theory that the dresses may have been (accidentally) made to a different spec.

2025 AR's bows also have slightly shorter "tails" than other MM bows of dresses with the same cut. I kind of view it as a halfway compromise between the shorter tails of 2014's pointed bows and it makes the bows look just a bit smaller and 'cuter'.

Here's a photo of AR 2022 for bow reference.

photo credit to framboise, thank you!

I always found it a weird quirk of 2022 AR that it has a long middle bow compared to "normal" MM bow proportions, it has a more droopy and gentle feel.

This is what the free "gift" headwear looks like:

The gifted KCs have a kind of...slot in the back that you can use to push a headband through. Although you could also just push it through the bottom of the middle fabric strip as well.

I think a clip or barrette can be used here as well which is convenient.

I was actually surprised that these head bows came with a lace accent on the edges (and it's matching dyed lace), I wasn't expecting that. I would usually assume MM was just using up leftover materials on hand, but I can't recall MM releasing something that used purple lace like this...could it have been lilac lace intended for the cancelled lilac Faltetto?

It's hard to not prefer the original 2014 release with its rose lace hem, pointed bows and stretchy shirring, but at least I can fudge the first two things with a little DIY 😛

I dyed some lace beige and light pink for navy and iris, respectively. I put snaps on the trim/dress lining so it's detachable.

I also made some additional bows.

For navy, I made some lighter (chocolat) bows so I would have the option of choosing the brown tone I wanted. The dark chocolat bows the JSK comes with are quite dark (it still matches fine, but definitely sticks out compared to the lighter brown tulle!)

The material used for the bows of Iris (2025) is a cotton burberry. Navy (2025) uses a cotton sateen, which is thinner and flimsier than burberry, so the larger bow definitely feels like it has some interfacing added to add structure. The smaller bows do not have interfacing. The bows of 2014 caramel were officially listed to be made from burberry, but I don't think it's what MM usually calls burberry (a sturdy cotton fabric with a fine twill weave; it's used in most Whyteleafe colourways for example) because the material feels like polyester and is quite wrinkle resistant. To make my 2014 style bows, I used a similar 100% polyester material (although I don't think it is exactly the same).

More minor observations...

Checking the location of the cameo part of the print on each dress, the attention to print distribution seems to be less consistent than the original release. Upon inspecting photos of various colours/dresses of the 2014 JSK, the central cameo in the print is quite reliably placed in the middle of the bodice, with the ribbon ending right at the bottom loop. Additionally, the cameo placement on the skirt front always seemed to have one right below the waistline, and then another slightly above the hemline braid. In comparison, while the print alignment is about the same vertically (i.e. the cameos are still aligned to the middle of the dress), it's isn't horizontally. the cameo placement seems to be a bit more inconsistent with 2022 and 2025 JSKs (it's clearly visible on the bodice but seems to be slightly higher or much higher–if you check my photos of the 2025 iris and navy it's not consistent between those either) and the alignment on the skirt is pretty much random. One one dress, the cameo falls approximately similar to 2014, while on another, it is cut off by the braid.

Overall not a big deal at all and hardly something the average person would notice, but it's interesting nonetheless that MM bothered to keep the print distribution so consistent for those dresses.

Additionally, the straps on the 2014 JSK are thinner and a bit longer (by about 3-4 cm). This causes the JSK to sit ever so slightly lower than other MM dresses with this design (valeria, rose basket, felicia rose). Comparing the 2025 JSK with my valeria, the strap width, length, and overall design seems to be pretty much identical–once again reinforcing that MM probably used that pattern to produce 2025's (and probably 2022 as well) Arabesque Rose.

The bottom tulle portion that sticks out of the dress is also shorter with 2025 (unclear if this is the same with 2022). I would say by about 1-2cm. I think this is just due to design differences with the dresses...the tulle is attached to the lining with the 2025 release, whilst with 2014 the tulle and lace are sewn directly to the main skirt fabric. It's quite plausible that MM slightly lengthened the amount of tulle used in the design of 2014 to create a more even proportion of lace to tulle sticking out.

In photos of the 2022/2025 JSK, I feel like there is a kind of optical illusion (because of the lace?) where it looks like the tulle portion is longer than 2014 even though when you directly compare the two this is not the case. Pretty weird!

MM didn't seal off the edges of the corset lacing on either of my JSKs, but this isn't the first time this has happened (one of my Marine Roses randomly had unfinished lacing ribbon) and I can easily do the job myself, so it's fine in my opinion.

The original 2014 JSK has thread loops at the waist for what probably was intended to be a waist ribbon, but a ribbon was never included with these JSKs. The 2025 release does not have anything of the sort. Of course, none of these things stop a wearer from adding their own ribbon!

washing tags miscellany:

all JSKs were made in Japan.

I forgot to take a photo of the hangtags, but you can see them in the video. The tags are MM's usual jewel/floral design (with illustration by sakizo) with a small fabric swatch attached.

Lining material is a generic satiny polyester for all JSKs, but the 2025 lining is a little thicker and has a visible diagonal weave to it.

brief worn photos with the same blouse and shoes (+worn comparison with 2014 JSK):

Worn I think the JSKS look pretty similar, but the 2014 release definitely seems to sit a tad lower due to the slightly longer straps.

And here are a couple worn photos of the iris & modified lace-added navy JSK.

Before I start, let me cross-link my friend Kaya's Marine Rose comparison! She goes over a lot of the same points I write here—in fact, there are even more details!

This is a loose companion post to my Marine Rose (mint & beige) unboxing, and also my pink MR unboxing (which also contains some brief comparison footage)

So far, there have been 3 distinct releases with what I would call 4 variations:

(click on images to enlarge them)

Marine JSK from 2004

Released in 3 solid colours: misty gray, cloudy rose (pink), and black.

Marine Rose JSK from 2024

Antique Mint colour with a discontinued wide rose motif chemical lace (the same as 2004's JSK)

Rose Beige colour with a slightly narrower lattice, rose and leaves motif chemical lace

Later, a "Antique Mint 2" variation using the rose and leaves motif lace (sold via lottery)

Marine Rose JSK (Made to Order) from late 2024

3 colourways with a remade tulle lace variation on the discontinued wide rose lace

The braid accents have been swapped for chemical lace. There is no braid/lace added before the hem frill on this release.

Order volumes appear to have been unlimited as order placement stayed open the entire duration of the stated reservation period (vs. previous release which sold out quickly)

I have the black colour JSK from 2004, the initial release antique mint, rose beige and the MTO pink colour. This is almost all the variations aside from "Antique Mint 2", but I think we can expect that version looks the same as the rose beige JSK I have, just in mint.

All the JSKs look quite similar design-wise. MM probably used the exact same pattern from 2004 as the fit and construction are also pretty much identical.

One thing that was weird about my mint JSK, though, is that it seems to be smaller than the other dresses. It's only about 1-2cm smaller; I would guess, but this is enough for the dress to not zip on my mannequin 🥲

Sizing on Rose Beige and Pink seem to be similar to the original 2004 Marine JSK.

Bodice comparison:

All of these are pretty similar aside from the top braid/lace, I don't have much to comment on it!

The original Marine JSK did not include detachable strap bows, to my knowledge.

I may as well use this opportunity to comment on the contrast ribbons:

Pairing brown ribbons with the mint colourway, and no brown anywhere else is certainly a choice! They don't match badly, and I do like brown and mint together (it's like mint chocolate!) but the safe and basic side of me would have preferred something like an ivory for coord versatility. The plus side is that we can change out the ribbons easily, and I think it changes the impression and coordination possibilities quite a bit!

I like ivory and deep reds/pinks together a lot and I was expecting the rose beige to have more pops of deep pink based on the fabric preview MM provided. Now that I can see what the colours actually looks like on the dress...I have determined it is very much a beige colourway, but we can still bring out the pink with this berry toned contrast ribbon!

Lace Comparison:

As expected, the lace on antique mint is exactly the same as the old Marine JSK.

Although it somehow feels to me like the new tulle lace is larger/longer/wider than the old lace, it appears in reality their width is effectively the same.

One super interesting thing I noticed is that the edges of the lace of the beige JSK are tacked down by hand!! Each leaf has been carefully sewn with small running stitches. this allows for the lace to lay completely flat on the skirt without any bits sticking up or folding back on itself. You can tell by the way the stitching is done that it is definitely done by hand. And, I expect that every dress with this lace probably has the same attention to detail. Although I personally prefer the look of the wider lace, this detail is incredible. It may be why the Marine Rose JSKs were delayed so severely, as MM likely wanted the earlier reservations with this lace to ship before the newer MTO run.

Can you see the running stitches?

The rose beige/antique mint 2 lace is made from cotton and has a more dull/matte appearance than the other lace (likely made from rayon). I personally prefer rayon lace because it's more shiny and glowy! I don't know why MM didn't opt for rayon lace as I know this lace came in a rayon variation, maybe the rayon version was discontinued as well.

Lace/Braid:

The original Marine JSK uses a wavy and slightly thick braid contrasting along the top of the bodice and right before the hem ruffle. This has been swapped for a sort of lacy, abstract pattern beige braid for the 1st release of Marine Rose, which was further replaced by floral lace on the bodice only for the MTO (2nd release). The MTO has no lace on the hem.

Although the difference is fairly negligible, I like the enhancement the second row of lace/braid gives the skirt, it's too bad MM decided to eschew it for whatever reason (it could be for a small cost and labor savings?).

Back:

The dress back has 3 panels, with 2 additional darts. There is no shirring, which makes the slightly small antique mint extra unforgiving.

The back of the skirt is open to accommodate a bustle (in the case where one wears it with the included under-petticoat), with the topmost ruffle sewn to the dress. I assume this might have been done to aid a clean appearance of the back bustle, but it does also mean that the dress might be a little more difficult to coord without the underskirt. Personally, I don't care that much about the reduced versatility + the ruffle isn't that noticeable once the waist ties are tied so one could get away with various underskirt combinations still.

Washing tags:

The 1st run of Marine Rose (including the lottery version) are made in Japan. The 2nd release is made in China. Oddly, the outer material of the 1st releases of Marine Rose are labeled as 100% polyester. The outer is definitely 100% cotton and is labeled as such on MM's website, so it might be a mistake or have something due to with a shortage in these printed tags? It's unclear and my personal theory is that these are tags that were meant to be sewn into Faltetto/Faruetto JSK.

Underskirt/petticoat:

(western lolita uses the term "petticoat" differently than Japan, MM calls this a petticoat but it is more of an underskirt in English lolita terms)

I forgot that the under-petticoats of the mint/beige Marine Rose are a slightly different colour! The listing page on MM's website of the 1st release lists the petticoat colour as such, but I guess I forgot because the MTO version has the same colour for all the petticoats. One is ever so slightly darker than the other—a slightly darker ivory (officially, "unbleached", or "ecru") for mint, and "offwhite-ish ecru" (オフ寄りの生成, please let me know if you have a better translation for this) for beige. The difference in tone is quite subtle in real life and you could probably use either interchangeably with each dress. The 2nd release/MTO release has a universal "ecru" (生成) underskirt for all colours.

I can't really tell the difference between both "ecru" underskirts, I assumed the fabric and colour is the same, but I'm not sure...

The construction of the original Marine JSK's petticoat is quite different than Marine Rose. The hem is sewn a little wider (with the stitching also less close to the edge by consequence), and the material is a little bit rougher than the newer petticoats. Also, you have probably noticed by now that the colour is much different with a grayish beige tone.

The last tier of the underskirt especially changes in design depending on the release. Marine JSK and the 2nd release/MTO of Marine Rose have the tier hemmed off square, while the Marine Rose 1st release underskirts (both of them) are rounded off.

Here is another comparison between the underskirt tiers' attachment of Marine ('04) and Marine Rose (1st release, mint used here). On Marine's underskirt, the tier has been hemmed (with a narrow hem) before attaching. Marine Rose's underskirts have the tiers gathered into the hem and topstitched.

Underskirt waistband differences:

Marine JSK has 1 wide channel for elastic, and so does the 2nd/MTO Marine Rose. Compare to 1st release Marine Rose with 2 channels (also, the top of the channel is topstitched down). Also unclear why MM made the change, it could be that the factory who made the 2nd release underskirts was referring more strictly to the original specifications.

Also compare the interior of the waistband. Marine JSK + 1st release Marine Rose have the waistband neatly folded over twice and sewn. 2nd/MTO Marine rose has a serged edge that is folded over once. The hanger loops of Marine + 2nd/MTO release MR are a loosely woven tape, whereas the 1st release Marine Rose uses a ribbon.

It seems like there is also a length difference between the underskirts. I didn't notice a big length difference between the Marine Rose underskirts, Kaya notes that the 1st release is slightly longer (this is probably true)

Both MR underskirts are notably longer than Marine's ('04) underskirt. You can also see that there is a big variation in the length of the tiers between each underskirt.

Side note...these under-petticoats don't really hold as much poof as I'd like...even though the back is—and looks—very poofy with its many layers of frills and goes great with the JSK, the hem circumference isn't as large as expected and fills up fast. The front here is looking especially balloon-like. I also think that for this reason, it's not easy to get the skirt looking as full as the stock photo...or maybe just for me...(I love big poof, maybe to an unreasonable level 😅!)

Misc. construction/the inside:

The construction for these dresses is very clean! The bodice and skirt is completely enclosed in the lining (lining is sewn along all sides except the very bottom) with no visible seams, unless you lift the skirt lining of course.

The lining material used on the original Marine JSK is a typical slippery, shiny polyester, while the other dresses use a more breathable lining material (previously called "shirurido/sillead" シルリード by MM) that is more suitable for Spring and Summer (note that it is also 100% polyester). I might go so far as to say that this lining is characteristic of MM since I've never seen it used by other brands, even though MM obviously doesn't always use it (mainly on their spring/summer collection). I do like this lining a lot, as it feels lighter and less stifling than most synthetic linings, and also has a little bit of slipperiness and doesn't stick to itself as much as some cotton linings might.

You can see there are a few differences in finishing with the bodice here. 2004 Marine JSK has no topstitching at all, 1st release Marine rose has topstitching around the top of the bodice (it is not visible from the outside), and 2nd release/MTO Marine Rose has 2 rows of topstitching (not visible from the outside either), + 3 rows of stitching that were used to sew down the bodice braid. From the looks of it, the braid was secured after the dress was constructed. Or whomever was sewing that day was lazy. (Unclear—but regardless, I don't really mind this that much since you can't tell from the outside.)

Here is a close-up of the dress hem (forgive the dusty black fabric!). Like the underskirt, the hem is much narrower on both Marine Roses compared to Marine.

And...I think that's all I feel is worth sharing for now! It's a little crazy that I have all these Marine JSKs 🤯 about 3 Marine JSKs too many 😂 But it felt really nice to support Mary Magdalene...already I'm looking forward to their next release! ☺️

Part 1: Kumya JSK

Part 2: Bonnet

To make a matching kumya JSK, I first had to investigate the original dress a little! This I found actually very fascinating because I had never bothered to take a very careful look at the construction details of this JSK (it was, and still is always a precious item that I am afraid will get dusty or dirty if I look at it wrong...)

I actually even found a spot where it looks like the material was torn and someone roughly repaired it by hand (laugh). I have a feeling this was a factory mistake/fix (either from fabric manufacture or sewing) because it's hidden beneath some lace ruffle and I don't really think it's something that an owner would let happen, but who knows.

So here's a few details of RRE~

Many people don't know that RRE is made of velveteen! And further, there is sometimes a misconception that it came in a "cotton" and "velvet" version. As far as I know, there is only one version made out of cotton velveteen.

So the white can get dirty and attract dust super easily :')

The bodice has a panel of 3 ruffles + upper "hashigo" (ladder) lace part with ribbon. It is also boned (BABY's crap boning with sharp edges and no channels, meh...) but obviously I can skip that for kumya.

The skirt has a trapezoidal embroidered panel, the star of the show, surrounded by 3 tiers of ruffles that extend all the way around the back. The last "tier" is not gathered and has a smaller ruffle all around the skirt.

While thinking about how to construct something similar in kumya-scale, I found it fascinating that the under-material the ruffles are attached to are cotton! Makes sense to reduce bulk, plus you can't tell when the ruffles cover it.

The density of ruffle starts out quite concentrated, and then reduces as the bottom ruffle is reached. The cotton under-material also seems to have less material gathered than the main velveteen ruffle. This also makes sense to not only reduce material usage but also because having a huge amount of gather on the bottom tier can make the skirt look too heavy.

Knowing this, I fussed out some semi-arbitrary ruffle multipliers for each tier (and lining) in my notebook. Very important to keep tabs on how many fabric strips I need and their exact widths!

Also since everything is in kumya-scale the gathering is generally reduced by a lot. Kumya doesn't need much to have a very full skirt, and with such tiny tiers the effect of the gathering can easily look like overkill. The kumya elizabeth OP gathered lace/tiers very lightly:

As reference dimensions for kumya, I have these two kumya dresses which I used lightly (mostly the sugar bouquet one because it's a JSK). I also have the babydoll kumya, but as it was out of commission for a while (on my christmas tree!😅) I didn't use it for checks at all.

The sugar bouquet "bodice" is about 3cm long. I decided to extend it one more cm to 4cm to make it easier for me to calculate for the ruffles and also leave enough space so the ruffles would be visible and not potentially buried.

I use a cotton velvet fabric and a mixture of cluny and torchon lace I have on hand. This velvet has a noticeable twill weave to it and is thinner than the velvet BABY usually uses, but the thinness is perfect for this purpose. I was originally going to just use cotton sateen but remembered I had this!

You can't see the weave from afar so I tolerate it. I wouldn't have wanted to use polyester velvet/suede-like/minky, I think.

Since the material is still a velvet and does have a thickness compared to cotton, I decided to roughly hem any ruffle edges by hand with a simple once-turned whip stitch. it kind of seals the raw edge and hems it at the same time. Note that this is not a great idea for something that would be worn and washed a lot, but this piece in this specific case won't be.

In general, when it comes to mistakes with this piece I mostly ignore them because it's kumya-scale and not only will most people not notice, but as stated above it's also not a piece that will be worn and washed often so quality of construction isn't much of a concern.

Mentally deconstructing and calculating the construction of the ruffle part was a bit of a pain. My lace was wider that I needed so I had to roughly mark out where it should be sewn into the ruffle, not always with great success.

I'm also not great with working at small scale...much respect to doll clothesmakers.

The bodice of the sugar bouquet kumya JSK is made from a front trapezoidal panel with a strip of fabric attached to the sides that extends all the way around the back, and the skirt attached to that. So I cut some slightly angular side panels to attach to my rectangular/square-ish front ruffle panel.

(I threadmarked approximately where I wanted the seam to go because I don't trust myself to attach the side panel in the right area/dimension otherwise with such a wonky panel)

Simple straps made from strips of fabric. I make these slightly thicker than a regular kumya JSK as well because I feel like RRE has thicker straps too (well, the entire construction of the bodice is a bit different, but ignoring that...)

And a facing layer of ordinary cotton is sewn to the front panel.

For the section of lace at the top, I frankenstein together 2 types of lace that I trimmed to look more like the lace used on the original JSK. It seems the original JSK also has this lace sewn through the lining layer, so the stitching is visible from the inside.

I use the thinnest ribbon I can find--some silk ribbon in this case. It actually works really well because silk ribbon is very thin/flimsy and can be tied and threaded in nicely with relative ease.

By the way, if you aren't aware already, a yarn needle works very well for threading ribbon through lace.

Bodice portion finished. This took way longer than I was hoping, an entire night. Hopefully the results are worth it.

Next I fuss out the skirt. At this point I am working out the calculations and investigations already mentioned previously. I did make a few mistakes and had to re-cut a couple tiers!

I use a different lace from the bodice for the tiers because I thought the shape of this one was closer to what was originally used (it's actually the bilateral ladder lace used for the bodice, but instead of cutting off the lace edges and using the thread-through part, it's just cut in half)

After hemming the ruffle, I attach the lace to the velveteen ruffle with a single gathering stitch (too lazy to use 2, and the thick material makes it hard to gather anyway). The under cotton layer is gathered separately and sandwiched between the cotton layer of the previous tier.

Coming along. I think the lace length for these ruffles is a bit off/uneven/less than ideal, but oh well, can't be bothered to fix it...

After the third tier, a non-gathered velveteen tier is attached with gathered lace.

I also prepare the bottom ruffle, but that will be attached to the completed skirt.

Next, the most exciting but also potentially the most taxing part must be done--the embroidery!

I know that the top of the embroidered panel is basically the same width as the bodice ruffle (referencing the original dress), but the width of the bottom is a bit arbitrary (about 3x the width of the top of the trapezoid)

I mark out everything roughly with water soluble marker (the darker patches are where I messed up and used some water to erase, waiting for it to dry...)

The midlines of the panel as well as the 1/3 lines were marked because I 100% do not trust myself to make the embroidery symmetric without doing so. I'm a beginner and not nearly skilled enough in embroidery to freehand...

I carefully investigated the original embroidery and copied the locations of roses and leaves to my mini-panel. Once I have the general shape that I'm happy with, I start embroidering.

I didn't take too many progress photos of the embroidery, but I also don't think you need them. Because the scale was small, this took an entire evening/night which I think is not too long?

For the roses I use a combination of the "pinwheel" rose method and french knots (+ some additional plain stitches where I wanted more volume).

The nice thing about ribbon embroidery, I think, is that the ribbons add so much texture that even if it's a bit messy it looks very impressive anyways. Plus your mind will mentally interpret some random puffy ribbon lines as a flower anyways.

I use regular DMC 6-strand embroidery thread (split in half, so 3 strands used here) for the vines and leaves. Because I also suck at embroidery and have never embroidered a real project/learned real techniques I mostly kept the leaves simple and slightly abstract with 3 branchlike stitches. I think I currently can't fuss with making nice rounded miniature leaves without messing up every second stitch...

Finished.

I spray water to remove the marker marks and let dry.

Attach embroidered panel to ruffles. I should have double checked where the panel was aligning with the ruffles on each side since it's uneven, but whatever.

Gather bottom ruffle and attach to skirt.

I attach the bodice strip to the front bodice panel as well, and sew the straps down.

I basted the front of the bodice to the skirt by hand because I wanted to make sure they were aligned. Because I messed up sewing the ruffle tiers to the embroidered panel and they are somewhat misaligned, I tried to adjust where the top of the skirt was sewn to the bodice to compensate, it didn't work that well but eh, it's alright.

Gather the skirt and sew to the bodice portion. This was very fiddly and I had to redo some parts several times because the lace wasn't getting sewn down properly. It's still not great but I'll fix any egregious parts by hand.

The gathering is also pretty uneven, but I'm ignoring it...

Looks almost done but not yet!

There is a tiny bit more embroidery on the edges of the middle ruffle tier. I marked approximately where I wanted the roses to be and roughly embroidered them (without a hoop because it's too complicated to figure out alignment before construction, although embroidery is always easier with one).

I also add a back ribbon to simulate waist ties, a detail I notice on a few other BABY kumya JSKs. The waist ties on RRE have a slightly rounded/pointed shape to them, so I freehand this shape for the bow "tails" (because I'm getting tired and lazy, I didn't really measure although I did check that the width was approximately the same throughout). The backside of the waist tie is another layer of cotton, which reduces bulk when turning the shape inside out (the backside of the original JSK is also just lining material). I also folded a long strip over itself and basted it down, creating a loose tube shape to use for the bow part.

It's pretty hard to create defined folds in the bow with such thick fabric, but I tried my best...at least it's likely the back will rarely be seen.

I gave the dress a final allover spray with water to hopefully erase any remaining soluble marker. Also, some interior hand finishing needed to be done (mainly tacking down some unruly seams)

And finally, actually finished. The embroidery thankfully turned out decent enough to distract from any weird spots of construction and so on. It looks quite remarkably like the actual dress, so goal achieved I think!

Extra contents:

I make kumya little wrist cuffs because some of the kumya variations (such as babydoll kumya) come with them, and that's really cute.

BBD kumya seems to use a type of lace that's already elasticated, but I don't have that on hand so I just sew two pieces of the same lace used for the bodice ruffles together to make it bilateral and stitch on an additional elastic with a stretch stitch. And add on a little ribbon bow (I only have silk ribbon in this narrow width, but I think a ribbon with more body such as poly satin or cotton satin would work better)

And I also make two of those little applique ribbon thingies (you can buy them cheaply from craft stores and so on, but whatever) and stitch them temporarily to kumya's bows for an extra accent.

I'm lazy so I use the bloomers that came with the hawase kumya set underneath (I'm sure making a similar pair of bloomers wouldn't be too much work but I have no idea if these are patterned with some kind of shaping/rise and I don't want to deal with that)

This is actually yuefii's kumya that I am still hoarding for whatever reason and has its eye and mouth fur already trimmed.

And now Usakumya is ready to see the runway :)

Part 2 (bonnet making) is here.

Part 1: Kumya JSK

Part 2: Bonnet (you are here)

This post will be my process pictures and notes for the bonnet, as well as a matching mask as a bonus.

I don't believe BABY released matching headwear for Rose Ribbon Embroidery, although I've seen an unknown velveteen headbow with rose lace sold with RRE before.

BABY usually coords RRE with the bunny ear bonnet since Ichigo wears it this way in Kamikaze Girls.

I do own this because I wanted to wear an Ichigo-like outfit at some point, but for this occasion I decided to do something different and make a "matching" embroidered bonnet.

I originally wanted to make a hard bonnet with a very defined brim that could show off the embroidery clearly as I don't really like soft bonnets, but when looking at existing BABY bonnets as a reference, it doesn't look like hard bonnets were a thing back in 2004 (and as it is, BABY rarely releases hard bonnets). So to keep with the oldschool theme, the bonnet is a soft one, although I later make some decisions to make it slightly more structured.

The next decision to make was full bonnet vs half bonnet. The bunny ear bonnet is a full bonnet and I think this is technically more "period accurate", but I am not a fan of how they look like a weird hood from the back so I opted for half (plus, that makes construction and patterning easier for me).

I still used my own bunny ear bonnet as a reference for approximate brim dimensions!

The kumya JSK was a little easier to carelessly sketch out and embroider since I was copying 1:1 from an existing design, but I felt I needed to do at least a bit more careful planning for the embroidery on this. I'm quite bad at creating embroidery designs from scratch, but with the mental image of the rose clusters and swags of vine, as well as referencing the embroidery from the film, I came up with this:

I wanted to emulate the embroidery style of the Momoko's (well, in reality likely the embroidery designer Onoe Megumi--unclear if she did the actual embroidery, but it's likely) embroidery, which I figured wouldn't be too difficult if I was also embroidering by hand.

For material, I am using the same velveteen I used for kumya's JSK. Not my first choice and I actually purchased some thicker looking 100% cotton velvet that I thought would be more similar to the original JSK material, but was worried it wouldn't arrive in time and wanted this project out of the way in case things went wrong/took longer than I expected (it did arrive about a week before the event, but it was totally wrong IRL so I'm glad I just went with this acceptable option). I also bought some more torchon lace, so I used that and another lace from my stash.

The colours of the embroidery in the film also seem to be quite different than BABY's dress. I'm not sure if the pink of the roses has faded over the years, but it has a slight salmon tone whereas the film's roses seem to be more of a pale cool/neutral pink (hard to tell with the yellow tint of the entire film) with some variegation. I love the colour scheme of the film's embroidery, but to keep things coordinated I try to opt for the same colours as the actual dress I have.

I only have white silk ribbon in the width I wanted, so I opted to attempt to dye it to match. Previously I have used alcohol markers to colour the embroidery afterwards, but I find the colour hard to control and it tends to bleed into the fabric. I've also tried colouring the ribbon with the marker before embroidering, but without heat setting the colour transfers onto the fabric as well (and it seems like trying to do so with the amount of ribbon I need would be a waste of ink).

I don't have a lot of experience with it, but since the ribbon is silk, acid dyeing seemed like the way to go.

Very interesting photo of ribbon in pot (the pink ribbon gets eaten up by pinwheel roses much faster than I expected so this is the second batch I had to dye--not ideal as they are definitely slightly different in colour but it's not too noticeable). In total, I think I had to dye 3 batches of ribbon and 4 for the pink ribbon as I just barely ran out near the end, and they are all slightly different colours. Thankfully the undertone is the same so it's difficult to tell unless you are really comparing up close.

I thought I would take this opportunity to use the "peach" acid dye that I bought years ago for another project, but this ended up being a mistake as the colour was totally off (maybe the red dye was too expired). I ended up using my regular fiber reactive procion dyes (with heat/acid), because I have many more colours I could mix together, and that was much better. I really should have done this from the start as I wasted perfectly good silk ribbon by making it too dark/off for my purposes (I ended up overdyeing it in pink so it's a usable colour now, but not for this project).

The silk seems to take on dye extremely fast--even just heating up the dyebath will colour it. In some cases I removed the ribbon before adding any acid at all because I felt the ribbon was already getting too dark.

I managed to get a fairly usable mossy green colour for the leaves and vines, however the pink still ended up being a little off/dark compared to whatever BABY used. It's not too bad here as one strand of ribbon, but when many layers are on top of each other in a rose it seems pretty dark. While not ideal, I think it's still okay, especially considering the embroidery colours used in kumya's JSK match nothing else (many pinks will be going on in this coord).

After dyeing and drying, the ribbon is super wrinkled so I ironed it and wound it on some spare card so it's ready to use.

And now I can start the arduous process of embroidery.

Like before, I mainly use a combination of ordinary ribbon stitches, pinwheel roses, and french knot roses. However, this time I try harder to duplicate, or at least evoke the appearance of the embroidery of the film.

It's interesting how plain and somewhat boring the roses look on their own, especially with this monotone colouring. The varied colours of the film's embroidered roses are lovely, but I decided against it here because the BABY dress has monotone ribbon roses.

The roses definitely seem to just be pinwheel style which is very easy and doable, however I am a bit more confused about the leaves. They look like a number of straight stitches in various lengths and directions that fill in a leaf-like shape. I have no idea if this technique has a name and if there is a proper method for it, because I am a silly beginner who is very uneducated in embroidery.

Anyway I do my best and hopefully I got close enough. Ribbon embroidery is really all about the texture, which is really lovely to look at. Except I have trouble looking at my own work for too long because I start nitpicking all the mistakes I made...

Adding the green and leaves really helps the embroidery come to life.

I took even fewer pictures of the embroidery process than kumya's JSK this time because it's not that interesting. I was definitely getting sick of doing the same pinwheel over and over...

I stupidly decided that aside from embroidering the front of the brim, I also wanted a little bit of embroidery on the back of the brim for interest, as well as on the side.

The designs I drafted out for these two pieces is much simpler, but still, more work....

Almost ready for construction! Hopefully a lot faster with the handwork out of the way.

I iron on some interfacing onto the back brim panel and the bonnet band for slight extra stiffness.

The bottom part of the brim is plain cotton sateen because I was worried that the part that touches the head would get dirtier more quickly it if was velveteen.

I wanted some lace gathered around the brim and an extra velveteen ruffle on the back of the band, so I prepare that now. The lace is gathered with a single gathering thread and sewn down before sandwiching between the two brim panels.

Brim sewn and topstitched (and band is ready for attachment).

The upper flowers ended up a little closer to the top of the band then I intended, but I think it's okay.

Gathering brim and attaching it to band. Because the velvet fabric is so thick, the usual "sew one line of stitching with a wide stitch length" not only made the fabric incredibly difficult to gather, but the thin polyester thread also continually broke when trying to do so. Therefore, I opted for an alternative method I think I'd remember seeing in my sewing machine manual of all things--a zigzag carefully stitched over a central gathering thread. This worked much better, although I probably should have used a thicker/extra strong thread as the central gathering thread because it did break the second time I had to gather the brim due to a mistake.

I also add a bit of lace to the inside of the brim. I think this adds some luxury and frilliness between the head and the bonnet's brim, so I wanted to add a small width. I probably could have used even more of the lace's width since it turned out very subtle when worn. But I still think it adds a small amount of interest to the innermost part of the brim and was worth adding.

Unfortunately here after sewing on both brim parts I realize that I gathered both using an incorrectly marked centre line, so I had to rip it out and do it again ;_;

Next, I can carefully align and pin the bottom of the brim to the bonnet and sew it down. I tack this down by hand because I'm not skilled/accurate enough with a sewing machine to topstitch both sides nicely at once (look closely, and my messy stitching is quite visible...)

I also fold in the raw edges and finish the sides of the brim by hand, leaving some openings for ribbon ties.

At this point I spray almost the whole bonnet with water to disperse and fade my markings. Unfortunately, some of the earlier batches of ribbon that I dyed (Can you tell the variance in the 3 dye batches I needed to do?) were probably not washed well after dying and seem to have bled into the fabric from the water...but hopefully it's not too noticeable.

Next I topstitched all around the brim and attached the ribbon ties.

I bought some double sided velvet ribbon in my last minute supplies shipment and made some bows from it. I think the material is a little thick and petersham would have worked alright as well, but the consistent velvet material feels more luxurious, doesn't it? I also think as an added benefit (?) the ribbon being plush and double sided made the bows more puffy looking.

I add some clips to the sides and a toupee clip to the top for security. I opted for a toupee clips because I think it's really the way to go if you don't want the head item to move at all, no matter how thin or slippery your hair.

Finished.

Bonus 1: rose accent pin

I was in a bit of a rush at this point as it was near the end of the week coming up to the show, so I didn't take any photos of the process here but the technique and templates I used were identical to my handmade faux rose rosettes I made for UM (and the bonus corsages). I have a post with all the details of this sitting in my drafts that I will post eventually, and I will update this post when that happens.

The brooch was just meant to add a bit of 3D faux flower accent to the bonnet, bringing in the rose motif even more. Partially inspired by the faux flowers BABY adds to their bonnets sometimes, like on Milk Tea Doll.

The fabric was "custom dyed" with the same fiber reactive dye I used for the silk. The fabric was further starched, cut out by hand, and shaped with flower iron tools before gluing together.

Bonus 2: matching embroidered mask

I wasn't sure about whether or not I wanted to wear a matching mask, but decided to do so for situations when I would want my face at least half-covered in public. I didn't really expect to be visible in fashion show pictures as someone in the back, but just in case. (I think this decision was worth it, although my makeup transferred all over the thing and in most pictures my face was even more unflattering. eh well)

I forgot to take a lot of pictures of my process for this, but it's very uninteresting and not dissimilar from every other mask sewalong from 2020. I draft out a design similar to the bonnet motifs on both of my mask panels (cotton sateen), and embroider.

I should have embroidered closer to the centre of the mask because when worn the embroidery is not very visible/covered by my hair at the sides. What can I do since the panels were already cut though...oh well!

The lining material is some Japanese CLEANSE Ex fabric I had bought previously to make masks during the pandemic. It's supposed to be antibacterial and antiviral, as well as washable, but I have no idea how well supported those claims are.

Sew together normally on both upper and lower sides, turn inside out, add a channel for nose wire and side channels for elastic.

I also have some mask elastic on hand so I use that.

And the finished outfit again with all my items~

Note: I will be referring to Farutetto as Faltetto in this post as MM has previously translated the dress name as such.

I'm honestly not really sure why I wrote this post, and I'm regretting it a little having finished writing it because the topic seems pointless, but if you like maximum poof, then maybe this niche blog topic is for you.

Related posts about farutetto/faltetto dress: Unboxing (2023 mist and navy), Mary Magdalene faltetto history (long), 1st coordinate post

Mary Magdalene's stock photos for Faltetto picture it bustled with a highly raised back, but they really left it as an exercise for the reader when it comes to achieving this effect ourselves.

Bustle-able skirts are common enough in classic lolita, but we don't have a lot of lolita petticoat options that provide a historical-style rump. Not to mention that the bustle effect going on above is quite extreme.

Some petticoats that I can think of that have increased back volume are Sheglit's Victorian pannier, and some of Victorian Maiden's old petticoats.

left: VM Hip Up Middle Tulle Pannier, right: VM Hip Up Pannier

The VM petticoats appear to be designed to be used with their bustle skirts, with a few extra tiers of hard tulle to help provide a slight volume to the outer skirt.

Sheglit Long Bustle Pannier

Sheglit's is similar, with a large amount of tulle gathered near the hips for an Edwardian silhouette. I don't own this petticoat, but it might work with faltetto if the petticoat is wide enough to stuff more volume underneath.

For me, I think these types of petticoats weren't quite going to cut it... I needed huge back poof. Or at least needed to try...

Here is faltetto without any petticoats. The dress itself has no additional volume built in, so it's pretty flat. The lining is as densely (or nearly) gathered as the outer chiffon, so you could argue it is giving a tiny bit of volume. But still, quite flat.

I have collected too many petticoats over the years and own about a million at this point, so note that the petticoats I am layering here are only a guide and should be achievable if you own 2 or 3 relatively poofy petticoats of your own.

I use a couple not very poofy petticoats as a base layer to help hold up the larger upper petticoat layers.

Layer 1 is a Malco Modes 580 ("Zooey"), which is a light-poof petti.

Layer 2: Just a deflated Mary Magdalene Pannier-skirt for a tiny bit more volume

You could probably use one decently poofy A-line or 1 quite poofy, slightly longer bell petti instead.

I layer a short bell shaped petticoat on top of these to give more volume to the upper portion of the skirt. A-line pettis tend to be quite bottom heavy and I think the delicate chiffon fabric of faltetto needs consistent support along its silhouette, or else it looks weird.

Layer 3 is AP's "short organdy pannier"

These are the base layers. Next I add a back cushion to help hold up all the layers that will follow. It helps a lot in creating a "shelf" effect at the back.

The cushion itself is made from kona cotton (scraps can also be used) with a pattern that I freehanded off of examples of edwardian back pads online. I don't think the exact shape matters that much--you could probably tie a literal tiny cushion to your hips. But the dimensions of this one are approximately this if you want to try it yourself:

You can round off the sides into a kind of 3-oval shape, or cut out a smooth semicircle, I don't think it will make much of a difference for this purpose.

After trying this setup with the upper layers added and finding the bustle effect not jutting out enough, I decided to add an extra volume layer just to the back. I don't have anything purpose-made right now, so I made do with a deflated bell shaped petticoat folded in half (and folded again slightly around the edges to keep the total pinned width about 3/4 of the waist) and pinned to the cushion.

The result so far is weird, but maybe it works...

The last actual petticoat layer is Angelic Pretty's "Long Organdy Pannier". I don't think AP makes these anymore, but they are a approx. 50cm long, gently bell-shaped petticoat designed for the longer dresses AP was releasing around 2016~2020. I find the longer length quite good for sweet-classic when the skirt of a JSK or OP is a little longer, or achieving a little more poof around the upper part of the skirt with certain longer classic pieces. It's not extremely poofy on its own, but I personally enjoy using it for various poof purposes.

Layer 6 or so (?) (AP Long Organdy Pannier)

This final petticoat layer also helps smooth out the bustle silhouette, from the front to the raised back.

Finally, on top of all that a tiered underskirt is layered on top. Faltetto doesn't have any built in underskirt (just a lining, which is expected to be bustled up with the main fabric), so it's more attractive to add some ruffles to the back that are visible when the skirt is lifted. Unfortunately, at this point the petticoats are so wide that I don't seem to have any underskirt wide enough for the entire circumference of the poof.

This is the result, but I actually wouldn't recommend positioning an underskirt like the above because the length of the underskirt didn't end up matching the length of the skirt, being quite a bit too short instead (and not really in a nice bustled looking way, in my opinion). In my initial worn photos, I instead fold the underskirt in half and pin it to the waistband of my petticoat (and then pin the underskirt up a little bit since doing this made it a bit too long), which kind of worked but also wasn't really a great solution. I might need to make my own super wide underskirt, or something...thoughts for another time.

Lastly, the dress can be added over top everything! And don't forget to bustle the dress. It's not an entirely intuitive process for first-timers, but there are loops on the back of the dress that you thread the bustle ties through and further tie into a knot. I might try to post a reel of this process eventually (and will update later if I do), but here are some pictures which muddily attempt to express how the bustle is tied:

It was about at this point that I realized that this JSK had a minor factory defect, but thankfully it was easily and very quickly fixed.

And so, here is how the dress looks with all those layers underneath from different angles!

From the front, it looks pretty much like a normal petticoat is being worn with it. I hope this is enough back poof, but what do you think...?

And here are some extra photos of this coordinate to show the set up worn. I can tell that this arrangement might not be very sustainable for a full day, so I will probably be tweaking the petticoat arrangement further in the future.

Companion posts: 2023 Faltetto unboxing+some details (mist and navy), initial worn post, petticoat/bustle post

Note: while this dress is most often known by the name of “Farutetto” due to this translation being used on Lolibrary, I will be calling it “Faltetto” since Mary Magdalene has translated it this way on their website.

Table of Contents

Prologue Rambles: Mary Magdalene (the brand)

Faltetto (2017)

Faltetto (2018/Le Panier event)

Le Panier/Fée d’une Fleur incident

Faltetto (2022)

Faltetto (2023/Samples)

Unboxing

Faltetto comparisons

Epilogue Rambles: Mary Magdalene’s Future

Faltetto dress. This dress design was first released in 2011, with a rerelease in 2014 that included a new colour, amethyst (a purple). This was basically Mary Magdalene’s last good year, with no more original main piece designs being released since. I don’t think anyone knows for sure why Mary Magdalene dropped off after this, but common theories are factory issues or management issues. The brand has pretty much been on life support since, with demand outpacing a near-nonexistent supply.

Mary Magdalene has always been a small brand, with a very small number of each release being produced. Secondhand prices for many coveted items are incredibly high, making for an overall depressing outlook on the brand, and in similar ways classic lolita in general, which currently appears to have a much smaller number of wearers than the other two main substyles sweet and gothic.

Mary Magdalene is the brand that got me into lolita, and remains my favourite, beloved brand--and I think many others feel the same. It feels both rewarding and disheartening to obtain some items directly from the brand (a first for me). I have always tried to keep an eye on the brand’s activities since releases started dropping off, but as updates started dwindling to once a year, or sometimes once every two years, I don’t always stay on top of it.

Still, Mary Magdalene’s activities around 2017~2018 in China are largely unknown or misunderstood, so I hope writing about what I know may provide some knowledge to the community.

Finally, into the Faltetto content. The Faltetto dress was actually rereleased in 2017 at an event in Guangdong (I believe it was an anime/culture event with some Japanese lolita brand guests, but I can no longer remember the details). As far as I know, it was intended as an early reservation/MTO with a general reservation intended to be made available to the public shortly afterwards. Mary Lou OP was also available to reserve, with a few new colours. The general reservation did actually happen for this dress later in 2017, but Faltetto never did. Which is only the start of difficulties with this release...

Promotional image of the event. I’m glad I saved this, because it doesn’t seem to be viewable on weibo anymore.

Two new colours were introduced:「 枣红色」, or what would later become known as “maroon”; and 「雪灰色」”snow gray”, or what would also later be revealed to be “mist”. The maroon colourway was supposed to be an event limited colour, though I don’t know if this meant that it was originally intended to be only available for the event or maybe only available at the event + the online shop (it seemed like historically Mary Magdalene limited colourways were “online shop limited” or “online shop and KERA shop limited”, so it would be rare for a colour to not be available online)

I think a lot more people ordered the maroon colour vs. the mist, as I have seen the maroon a few times on xianyu since, but never the mist. Red is a lucky colour, so it makes sense. But I had always been in love with the mist. I came very close to reserving the mist through two levels of SS (CN SS talking to a event SS via xianyu), but the fees and conversion rate made me balk (I was quoted about $430 USD for everything but international shipping, which in retrospect was probably worth it to not live through the heartache. For reference, the event sell price was 2127 RMB), plus I thought that Mary Magdalene themselves would make the dress available sometime soon, so I never followed through. Terrible regret on that one.

The dresses were scheduled for shipment some time near the end of 2017, but production was slightly delayed into spring of 2018. I believe that the dresses didn’t necessarily ship out all at once, so some of the orders that were fulfilled later came with a free headdress.

The picture of the maroon headdress I have saved seems to be the Claudia Headdress with ivory side ribbons instead of red ones. The picture of the mist that I have saved seems to be totally different, with one single strip of lace (similar to Rose Cameo Headdress, except without the ruffles) used for the hairband part.

This is a picture of my regular release Claudia headdress, which has red side ribbons (I am trying to avoid posting pictures that aren’t mine if I can). The lace matches that used for the free headdresses, although the included hairband was a very thin ribbon-covered wire band, not a plastic one.

A couple weibo users posted pictures of their mist, and knowing that the dress both exists and basically doesn’t gave me terrible heartache....I wouldn’t doubt if it gave you, the reader, terrible heartache too, since the numbers remain few. But I believe some hope out there exists that Mary Magdalene will have a larger reservation intake for these someday...

I later found the maroon secondhand on xianyu in 2018, and purchased it.

The dress has a few differences from my (probably older) other Faltettos. I’ve added a few comparison photos at the end of this post, as well as a few comparison pictures in my unboxing post.

About halfway through 2018, a new lolita magazine, “Le Panier”, was released. A number of other lolita blogs have posts on the magazine, but the general concept was a more premium, artistic “high fashion” lolita magazine. The magazine was published in a Chinese and Japanese version. Mary Magdalene was featured in the magazine (which was a surprising and very rare thing to see), in just one page:

Not the best picture of this page, but hopefully it’s readable. The dress is indicated as “Faltetto Dress 2018″. I also forgot that there were a number of coords in the magazine styled to each sister in “Little Women” (I wouldn’t say all of them hit the mark, but lolita works okay for Meg).

Midori Fukasawa wearing Faltetto in mist. The coord uses a brooch and tights from Mary Magdalene’s personal collection seen in a number of their other stock photos. The blouse is Faltetto Blouse, bonnet is Bisque Doll Bonnet and the shoes are Lace-up Ribbon Strap Shoes. While I think Mary Magdalene’s intentions here are genuine, the description just feels like betrayal.

2017年にイベントで先行発売。 人気を呼んだファルテットドレスのミストカラーが、 ついに一般でも発売に。

This page is, I think, proof enough that Mary Magdalene definitely intended to open a general reservation for Faltetto at the time. Along with the publication of the first volume of the magazine, Le Panier announced and held a large tea party in Shanghai, featuring many Japanese brands as guests (including Mary Magdalene, Metamorphose, Victorian Maiden, Juliette et Justine...), as well as touting exclusive items and reservations. And this was the start of the problems...

It’s hard to not bring up Le Panier without also mentioning the Juliette et Justine Fée d’Une Fleur incident. This is in fact also relevant to me, as I preordered that dress💧

I can’t remember all the information regarding the incident, but to keep things hopefully brief, it boils down to the dress not being what was promised. 

Fée d’une fleur is quite a coveted dress in China (and it is incredibly rare, being from 2008, I believe was made to order by reservations, and also was expensive for the time), and it sounds like lolitas had been requesting JetJ to rerelease it for some time. Soupir d’ange had been released a few years prior with similar design elements, but was not the same (notably, the skirt “petals” are not placed and do not drape in the same lovely way). It seemed unlikely that the original would ever be rereleased because apparently the original pattern had been lost, and manufacture would be incredibly costly.

So when Le Panier announced that JetJ would be taking exclusive reservations for the Fée d’une Fleur, Chinese lolitas were incredibly excited. The original  Fée d’une fleur stock image was used in Le Panier’s announcement post.

Among this, reservations for Faltetto were presented for two new colourways:

Navy and a lilac (I do not know the official colour name, but one Chinese poster called it “light purple”. And yes, the provided photo quality was extremely bad).

The price for Fée d’une fleur was significantly higher than previous (original price: 37800 JPY, le panier price: 4600 RMB [converts to about 77400 yen at the time]), which I think bothered people, but the bigger problem appeared at the event...

The sample Fée d’une fleur looked nothing like the original that was promised. 

The sample dress can be seen in the background of this catwalk picture.

The colours and drape were just off. The response was so bad that Le Panier had the designer of Juliette et Justine come up and promise that it will be exactly like the original. But few seemed to be convinced.

I ended up going ahead with the preorder anyway, because I had already paid my SS. I didn’t mind the differences as long as the colour was corrected on the final product. Juliette et Justine ended up releasing reservations for this “Fée d’une Fleur 2018″ to the general public, with a "lavender pink” colorway as well.

By the way, the price on JetJ’s website for this was ¥68000 without tax (¥73440 with tax, which I think was 8% at the time). Le Panier later did also give those who reserved a discount of I think 300 RMB off the original list price because of the price difference (I can no longer remember exactly how much, it was maybe 300-400 RMB).

There were two blue colorways released. The one on the right, “sax blue” was the one shipped to Le Panier reservees and was labeled on the site as the colour of the original, while the one of the left, “mint” reminds me more of the sample...I wonder if it was meant to evoke the original 2008 dress better with a more pronounced difference between colorations (it still feels off, though)

Le Panier reservations received a few extra gifts: a matching floral brooch-clip (with small JetJ charm) and some Le Panier gifts (I chose the JetJ rabbit tote, which I believe was a gift available for a small additional fee with the Chinese release of the magazine, and washi tape selection). I also think the Le Panier reservations shipped first, but that’s whatever. I almost would have preferred the lower JPY converted price without SS fees and getting points from JetJ’s site, but the brooch is nice with the dress, I guess, and the dress itself turned out okay as long as you knew what you were signing up for (the stock photos of this 2018 release were accurate to what was shipped).

To this day I’ve never used the tote. I think it says Le Panier on it.

Closer look at the washi tape and the back of the brooch with JetJ charm. Le Panier made (I think) 3 types of washi tape with 3 different brands, and I think I was randomly given this JetJ one. No idea why we weren’t able to get all 3, but whatever.

The final dress still has some shortcuts taken like a few tulle/mesh petal panels instead of all chiffon, and the length is also very long (ankle length on me, vs mid calf for the original). Also, the petal placement is still wrong (closer to soupir d’ange), but it looks okay if you don’t think about it too hard.

My old fairy coord (from 2018) with Fée d’une Fleur 2018.

And now, back to Faltetto again...

Mary Magdalene designer Rieko Tanaka herself attended the event, which was nice to see. A booth was set up with a few stock items (notably Aria Fleur, which went on sale on the Mary Magdalene website in 2022. At that time, a few of the OP variations were sold out, so I can only assume they sold out here. Other pieces for sale were a single Copine Georgette JSK in pink, and a preview of the rerelease of Arabesque Rose).

Price for the navy or lilac Faltetto was 2000 RMB, plus shipping fees from Japan. Depending on the ticket level purchased, 2 or 1 piece per colour could be reserved (I think the might have later been increased to 3?). Apparently, these colours were supposed to be limited to the Le Panier event.

A sample version of the lilac Faltetto was on display, and the navy was shown during the fashion show. 

The bodice lace on this faltetto is the same as mine! I think the navy sample sold in 2023 is likely be the very same as this one presented in 2018.

I am unsure if I should upload a photo of the lilac here as I think the photos I saved were posted by individual participants of the event, but I’ll consider it if someone would really like to see it (the colour is quite similar to the grainy stock above).

I wonder now why Mary Magdalene didn’t post the sample of the lilac for sale along with all the other faltetto samples, but it may be because the lilac was missing the lace/braid at the front (for the event, the detachable bows were placed there to make the area less lacking).

I am quite fond of navy colourways, so upon hearing that a navy faltetto was something that was going to exist, I searched for an SS for it (I think I used Chinese Lolita Updates because I didn’t want to use two levels of SS), paid the deposit, and waited.

It looks like this particular attendee/SS reserved the maximum of 3 dresses for VIP ticketholders.

I can’t remember if the dresses had an estimated ship date, but they’ll ship when they’re ready...

...right? 

After much silence, in 2019, about a year exactly since the event, Le Panier announced that Mary Magdalene would not be able to produce the dresses, and everyone would be refunded. Mary Magdalene posted an informational notice on their website, which had an unfortunate translation error:

This follow up was added later:

I’m surprised that it doesn’t seem to be common knowledge what the “gift” that Mary Magdalene gave to people who reserved, but it is very minor--a small Mary Magdalene logo mirror.

I had to ask my SS to ship this to me, actually, as I think they deemed it too minor to bother spending the money to ship (shipping ended up being fairly cheap because the item was so small and light, though). It sounded like they were going to throw it away if I had not asked!

Le Panier also mentioned that they would give an extra gift and 100 RMB voucher, but I can’t remember what that was and/or if I ever used the voucher. Probably not, since all the things Le Panier sold were a bit expensive (imagine brand new Japanese brand retail prices plus SS fees, and then conversion... much easier to just buy directly from Japan)

Anyways, this whole thing just... sucked, really. Le Panier seemed to have dragged multiple brands’ names through the mud (I will not talk about it here, but there is the infamous VM Classical Doll incident as well), had a track record of numerous other hiccups and operational issues at their events/booths/sales, and overall was losing Chinese lolitas’ trust very quickly.

I should note that Mary Magdalene had attended another Chinese event some time in 2018 where they took reservations for a rerelease of Perfume Bottle, but production of that also failed with much silence from the brand (there was even going to be a new dark purple colourway). It’s very strange that the 2017 Faltettos were able to be manufactured, whilst planned pieces from 2018 weren’t, but I think these two incidents mean that the factory problems are real.

Later in 2018 Le Panier also took reservations for the rerelease of Arabesque Rose that was previewed at the event. These were in fact manufactured and shipped successfully around 2019 (+ I believe the Le Panier reservations came with a free headbow), and extra stock was uploaded to the Mary Magdalene website in 2022 as “Arabesque Rose Midi Dress”. The fabric used was identical to the original, with fewer colourways (caramel, iris and navy--no offwhite), no rose lace at the bottom, no shirring/less corset lacing loops, and slightly wider (weirder in my opinion) bows. While I am happy these were in fact produced, the rerelease looks like a sad shadow of the original, and the long bows with skinny, tight middles look like replicas (why is this type of bow so common on replicas? Not cute, in my opinion).

Le Panier continued to (attempt to) sell a few extra Mary Magdalene items on their website, but their bad reputation along with interest in Mary Magdalene being quite scarce at the time meant that selling the stock took a little while.

Le Panier’s original shop URL no longer functions, but they remain modestly active on Weibo. Le Panier volume 2 was published in late 2019, including a small report of the 2018 event, and there hasn’t been any more publications since. Perhaps Le Panier was started by a well-meaning lolita enthusiast who was a bit too ambitious and wasn’t able to manage their brand and event well. Or, perhaps it was a poorly executed plan to make a profit off of Chinese lolitas involving convincing Japanese brands to overpromise exclusive items and reservations, as well as resell Japanese lolita goods...potentially run by someone who doesn’t fully understand lolita/lolitas. 

After this, Mary Magdalene went silent for a while...and maybe I don’t blame them after all these Chinese events kind of exploded on them. It’s a little disappointing how much attention and exclusivity was turned to China during this time (I was seriously mourning that Mist had turned into a “2017 China event reservation only exclusive”), but most everyone came out empty handed, so was it really that exclusive in the end...?

Mary Magdalene saw a small return to activity in 2020, with a rerelease of the Génoise coat. But, after that...silence...for 2 years.

In 2022, Faltetto in maroon was uploaded, plus a few in stock items which appeared to be leftovers or extras from Le Panier (Aria Fleur and Arabesque Rose as mentioned earlier; plus the Arabesque headbow in offwhite only which I feel like was just extra unsold stock from 2014, and some small number of perle lace bolero which MM stated explicitly that was just old stock from the original 2016 release).

This release of Faltetto was particularly interesting, as the listing stated:

今回の販売分は、通常の量産とは異なり一人の職人が一貫して製作した特別バージョンとなっております。価格の変更が御座います事を予めご了承の程お願い申し上げます。

Google translate: This sale is a special version that is consistently produced by one craftsman unlike normal mass production.

(the second portion apologizes that the price has been raised due to rising production costs, but the price difference is 30000 yen (excl. tax) vs the original 26800 yen (excl. tax), which is hardly egregious)

So, this release is not mass produced and should be quality controlled very carefully. How nice, I thought.

Although I already owned a maroon faltetto, I put in an order request through Mary Magdalene’s overseas form anyways, in the slim chance that the dress wouldn’t sell out before Mary Magdalene processed my order, and so I could perhaps compare a mass produced vs. non mass produced faltetto.

Unfortunately, the dress sold out shortly afterwards. And I received this response:

この度はご注文頂き有難うございます。 大変申し訳御座いませんが、現在、「ファルテットドレス(マルーン)」の在庫は御座いません。 今後、受注生産にて再販を予定しております。その際は優先的にご案内させて頂きます。 (また、今回キャンセルが発生した場合もご連絡させて頂きます) この度はご希望に添える事が出来ず大変申し訳御座いません。 何かご不明な点等御座いましたら、お気軽にご連絡下さいませ。 それでは、失礼致します。

Disappointing, but at least this reiterates that Mary Magdalene has an intention to have a general release/MTO of faltetto. (But it hasn’t happened...yet...)

I heard that the quality of this faltetto is good and “Mary Magdalene quality”, but I have never seen it in person. I will note that I don’t have any issues with my 2017 faltetto (aside from the fabric choice being a bit thin) and I’m not sure what would be considered “better quality” or more “individual craftman-like” than a normal faltetto.

All other items on the website sold out quickly, as expected.

And then silence again...until now. Almost a year exactly after the last update. Like before, the update came suddenly and without warning, simply mentioning that a few leftover stock/sample/B items were going to be added the next day between noon and evening (what a big help!...though, I think this was intentionally vague so that the website wouldn’t crash with condensed traffic at a scheduled time)

Special thanks to rabbitreverie to letting me know about this update. I had kind of lost hope by this point and was not checking the site regularly. We were both refreshing all night! The site update came suddenly, with some sample items already being sold out by the time I saw the update (and I think I was quite on the ball, too...). What an odd treasure trove of an update, though...I imagine the sample items were only one (and potentially one of a kind).

(In some ways, I’m just glad with this update that we finally get a better quality stock photo of mist. You don’t want to know what blurry, artifact riddled pictures I’d been gazing at before this.)

A Faltetto “2017″ was available! In maroon and mist. This lines up with the 2017 guangdong event, with likely the same product number (my maroon faltetto did not come with tags to confirm, sadly). Mary Magdalene must have made a few extra pieces of stock that they never got around to selling...maybe? It’s impossible to know how many pieces were available.

Everything on the website sold out in about 5 minutes or less, which is impressive considering there couldn’t have been many people who knew about the update. But there was also very, very little stock.

Sample Faltetto dresses were also available in a separate listing (Mary Magdalene labels the second section, mostly older items, “outlet”, with discounted prices to match the sample or flawed status of the items. But why is it cheap when people would definitely pay more?? I suppose it is the principle of the matter...).

Peacock, Amethyst, Maroon, and Navy (!) are all available as sample versions. From the provided pictures, it looks like Amethyst and Maroon are a bit more saturated than the released versions.

Of course I go for the mist and navy, given my history with the colours...and somehow I manage to check out with both of them whilst fumbling around trying to enter my information.

A few weeks later, I have them in my hands! It’s a bit of an emotional moment for me since Mist had been on my “dream dress but impossible” list since it was announced.

Given that this post is already getting so long and superfluous, I have the unboxing and detail pictures in another post.

And here is probably the most interesting part, the comparison pictures:

I have 5 Faltettos now... which is quite a lot...

Overall the dresses I own are quite similar, aside from the navy having some obvious differences due to being a sample, and the >2017 dresses having their skirt tier lace gathered with the main fabric. Note that I obviously have not laid these out in chronological release order, it just looked aesthetically pleasing in this arrangement.

I used to own a different version of the ecru faltetto, which I believe may have been an older release, and that one definitely had some more prominent differences (such as placement of the chest lace being a tiny bit lower, with the first row of embroidered dots clearly visible [like the stock photos], and the bustle loop being sewn on the same edge as opposed to being a strip folded in half [it’s hard to explain]). Thus, my brain wants to tell me that the pink and ecru faltettos I have may be from 2014, a little more on the recent side.

Anyways, I won’t comment much on the following photos since there isn’t much to say anyway (except 5 of the same dress as eye candy!)

Bodice details--always the same lace, although the colour might vary a bit between dye lots/releases

The gathered (or not) lace at the skirt.

The braid used also seems to be quite consistent.

If you look closely, the second row of stitching securing the braid down can vary a little between releases. Also, the navy has clear buttons instead of same-colour buttons, which is as expected.

They all look pretty similar from the back.

I tried to make the bustle loops of each dress visible in this photo. The way they are sewn is pretty consistent across the faltettos here that I currently own. I didn’t have the heart to untie the navy ribbon ties that had come pre-tied! But I imagine they’re about the same as all the others (the ecru is wrinkly because I had it tied up while I stored it)

While finishing up my photos, I pondered what other areas of difference might be of interest. So here’s a picture of all the linings. The mist and maroon are pretty consistent with each other, which makes sense since they are from the same year. Navy has the least nice lining (also makes sense as a sample), with pink having a satin lining similar to the others, and ecru having a thinner but potentially still satiny lining (It’s hard for me to tell looking at this photo because the dress is so wrinkled from storage)

The inner tags are also not of much interest, but dresses released in 2017 and onwards have the country of manufacture specified (Japan). It’s pretty unusual for Mary Magdalene to list where their clothes were manufactured, but it can be found on the occasional piece. While I don’t own enough modern pieces to know for sure, I have a feeling that all of their newer pieces from 2017 have the country listed.

The older dresses (in my case, pink and ecru) have a tag like above, with no country of manufacture (qnd no extra button attached). The navy has no washing tag at all--again, likely because it is a sample.

These were all the photos I thought worth taking--the interior of the dresses seemed to be quite similar when I checked them. Although, I did notice that the navy had the skirt seams pressed open, whereas all the rest have the seams pressed to one side. It makes very little to no difference to how the seam looks from the outside, so I’m not sure why it is like that (maybe a minor difference in pressing decision in a mass manufactured factory environment?)

So, now that Mary Magdalene has updated their website, what does this mean for the brand?

One depressing conclusion could be that they were clearing out stock of whatever they had left in the office, and will close soon...

But I am hopeful. Or choosing to remain hopeful, in any case. It has been over 5 years now since a rerelease of Faltetto was planned and promised, which is so long that it’s easy to conclude that those plans are dead. But...why would Mary Magdalene sell the one of a kind navy sample, the colour that was sold to way more than just one person, and cancelled on more than one person? And mist... that colourway was in a magazine, expressing to thousands of readers that they will be able to order it someday. It’s too unfair to only have some 5-10 mist and 1 navy in the world, especially with how constantly apologetic Mary Magdalene’s site messages are (heck, the “add to cart” buttons broke/displayed incorrectly after the update and MM added an apology message about that). So... could Mary Magdalene be clearing out Faltettos in preparation for a larger release of navy, maroon, mist, among others? Everyone who wants these unique colourways deserves to own them if they want, and we need more Mary Magdalene pieces in the world. I hope that a larger release of main pieces from Mary Magdalene is coming...

(note: since initially drafting this, Mary Magdalene opened up reservations for another release of Génoise coat. So, I’m hopeful, but it’s not a dress yet!)

Other notes:

I recommend Tamie’s video about Mary Magdalene for a little bit of further information and a different account. Complaints and problems with LePanier actually are more numerous than just the issues that Tamie brought up (which sounds ridiculous considering how many were mentioned), but I won’t talk about them here, especially because LePanier’s presence seems to have almost disappeared.

To be honest, I’m a bit bothered about this release...I preordered it in November of 2021 (!) and it was supposed to ship in spring of 2022, but was delayed due to pandemic/factory delay reasons. Which is understandable, but again and again, leflacon kept telling me “it will be ready in july... august... november...” until finally, a year after the original ship date, they are ready.

I have mixed feelings about leFlacon in general. I find their quality not up to the price point (even on Taobao, which is cheaper than their global store), and the final product can differ from the listing/sample photos. Whether or not the sample pictures are just photographed really well (a lot of them seem to be overexposed or blown out, so it’s difficult to see the quality of material), or the sample is really a totally different piece, only the shop knows, I suppose. What I especially notice is that the sample piece can differ in dimensions/proportions compared to the final product, although the measurements provided in the listing itself are accurate, so don’t worry about that.

Anyways, despite the above, I like and own a couple leFlacon items with mixed feelings that vary on the item. I had felt a little snubbed in the past, but I still like leFlacon’s designs and brand concept, so I decided to take a gamble and purchase this one. Not sure if the long delay was some kind of sign, though.

The quality is fine--I definitely received what was on the tin, I think. The construction is also fine, and I don’t see any glaring problems with the stitching. But here are some notes I felt like making about the piece (good and bad):

The material is quite thin. 

It’s cotton, and this thinness could be considered an advantage--slightly gauzy and nice for summer. It does wrinkle easily, but I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing. The dress has a kind of frumpiness in its design with its long length and oversized sleeves, so wrinkles make it feel comfy and lived-in if the wrinkles are in areas that would happen naturally with wear (and not like you put it on after stuffing it in your closet in a ball).

The dress is completely unlined, not even in the bodice. 

Not really a problem since I imagine most will wear with a petticoat/underskirt and camisole, but I wasn’t expecting unlined (I don’t own other leFlacon dresses, only accessories, so I’m not sure if this is normal for the brand). I think this might be due to the insertion lace making adding lining costly/difficult, but it wouldn’t have been impossible. Not a dealbreaker, but odd, I think, since the material is so thin it’s see-through.

(Although, the seraphim OP below seems unlined too, so maybe that’s just how these things are.)

All of the lace is synthetic (except the bottom “lace” panel)

leFlacon seems to use stretch lace a lot, which I think has the advantage of being both very cost effective and soft/not scratchy. It may have a tiny bit of a glittery effect or sheen due to the synthetic content. Some may actually prefer this, but I’m not a fan, personally. After spending so many years surrounded by cotton lace pieces, I think synthetic lace just doesn’t feel as delicate to me.

All of the wider lace portions (such as the bib lace and sleeve ribbons) are stretchy. The insertion lace portion uses a convincingly historical looking bobbin lace portion, but it is also synthetic (nylon, maybe?). It looks completely fine from far away and presents no problems, but I also think that synthetic really pales in comparison to real cotton bobbin lace. Pictured is a small length taken from my stash, purchased from Japan, but originally imported from France. 

I recall brands such as Seraphim use high quality cotton lace for their insertion portions, so they’re out there.

Edit: A late thought, but I should note that Pink House (which is one of leFlacon’s style inspirations) uses high quality cotton lace like the above on their pieces (notably the underskirts which have insertion lace) as well.

Seraphim, Miranda OP 

The bottom of the dress uses an embroidered cotton lace panel. The density of the embroidered threads is not as high as some other brand lace I’ve seen in the past, and has a slightly blurry appearance because of it.

(Not as sharp a photo as I would like, but hopefully the point is expressed...)

Compare old AP lace with newer (almost all pieces from 2019 or so, though the following example is older) custom lace. AP hasn’t used lace with a cotton base very often in recent years, so it was difficult for me to think of an example. Below is tulle lace, which utilizes the same concepts.

AP Creamy Cherry (2017) top; Wrapping Cherry (2016) bottom

However, I think it would be unreasonable to expect a brand at this price point (despite my price complaints) to find a large panel of very high quality cotton lace to use on the dress, which would likely be very costly, so don’t consider this a real complaint.

...

and the menial gripes:

Skirt centre seam

The skirt joins with a long seam right down the middle, to join the skirt details into its signature ‘V’ shape. The seam ends at the horizontal pintuck portion. I was under the impression that a seam in a place so obvious is a bit of a no-no, but because of the skirt pintucks and V shape, I believe logistically it made the most sense to just sew it all up with a centre seam. But, I don’t have to like this or the way it looks, and I still think there are ways to prevent the seam along the top portion of the skirt.

A centre seam also seems to make the fabric inclined to fold in where it is located (at the middle), which I don’t love but I suppose it hides the seam and looks pretty normal.

Bib lace

I wouldn’t consider this a real gripe, but the bib lace doesn’t extend all the way to the back. This is a design decision you can see from the stock photo scratch that, I just checked and there are almost no pictures of the back, only one photo where the model is turned slightly to the side so you get the slightest glimpse, but it is definitely not the focus.

I did strike me as a bit weird because the pieces I’m used to looking at have lace up to the back.

Sheglit, Edelweiss OP

A random Gunne Sax dress referenced from some seller on Poshmark because I don’t own any GS dresses with this type of bib (very sorry seller for using your photo, someone please send me a photo I can use)

Price

The preorder price at the time for this piece was 968 RMB total (368 at the end of 2021, 600 in 2023...I note this because the exchange rate has fluctuated wildly in that time). For the delay, all customers who preordered (on Taobao, I don’t know about the global store) were entitled to a tiny refund of 30 RMB, plus free shipping (11 RMB value).

The dress is back on preorder right now for about 200 RMB more (1280 I think), and $269 USD on the global store.

Conclusion?