COPYCAT DESIGNS & DRESSES #11: The Long Gold Dress by Sobia Nazir

Here's another replica outfit I bought recently for a close friend's wedding, which I found very last minute and which I was lucky enough to get hold of. I originally wanted to get this Asifa and Nabeel outfit made for my friend's wedding (the bride wanted all her friends to wear gold) but I didn't like the replicas I saw of the outfits. I looked in several places, both online and in the high street to find something in gold that I would like, since it's a colour I've never worn before so I wanted to make sure it would suit me.

I finally ended up with this outfit, which I didn't actually get made to my measurements, as it was already made by a Facebook seller (the group is called Catwalk Collection) who was selling the outfit as it had been ordered by another customer originally but then the customer backed out last minute. After making some enquiries about the outfits, I bought the outfit and it was shipped over in about five days, which I was very pleased with.

This is replica which I received, which has added sleeves and came with a plain dupatta and plain gold churidar. Although the colour is more creamy than gold, it looks like a light gold colour overall, which was quite subtle and shimmery rather than overly blingy or shiny. The front of the kameez was fully embellished with metal-work and beads, as well as silver motifts on the neckline, hem and smaller motifs on the sides of the kameez. The sleeves were plain but had jamawar fabric as piping, which also matched the piping of the dupatta. There was also a hot pink piping along the neckline, which although was a copy of the original, I felt that it was a bit random because there wasn't any another pink in the rest of the outfit.

This is the close-up of the outfit (I really liked the buttons!) and the intricate work of the outfit. I was quite happy with the quality of the work, as there was a lot of metal-work and beads and it didn't look cheap. There was also sequins used to edge the hem and the neckline, but this was quite minimal and I quite like the effect they had to make the dress look shimmery.

THE GOOD: I've never worn gold as an outfit before, and I was quite happy with the shade I ended up with, since it was a warm, soft colour which was very flattering, and it was very easy to match my make-up and jewellery to. Although the work is very full-on on the kameez, it didn't feel too much to me because of how intricate and detail it looked, and it worked well with the long length of the kameez. I think my favourite part of the dress was probably the smaller motifs scattered on the sides of the kameez (see the last image) which made it look pretty, I've seen this design on other outfits and I think it looks quite nice.

THE BAD: Because the front of the kameez was more embellished than the back, it made the front quite heavy and it leaned forward slightly, which is something I've found with previous outfits which have more work at the front. The best way to balance out the shape of a dress like this is to make the back longer, which thankfully my gold outfit did have, since the sides and back were slightly longer than the front.
I also wasn't too keen on the pink piping on the neckline, although the colour was pretty, it was too random and it made it slightly more difficult for me to match my hijab and shoes to. While the two colours do go together in some ways, in this outfit I think it should either have been left out, or more pink should have been added.

THE UGLY: Like many of my other outfits, this one was made of chiffon, which meant that my sleeves had a lot of pulls at the end of the day from catching onto the work! I think this is just a typical hazard of using chiffon, and the only way I've learned to avoid pulls of fabric so far is to put my dupatta on my should between the work and the sleeves, but this doesn't always work.

OVERALL: I can't give a full review of the time/process it took to make this outfit, since this was technically a ready-made outfit and it was also a very last-minute purchase. I think I did get good value for money, and I was certainly very happy with the level of work and the shade of gold the outfit was in. While in hindsight I would probably have less work on the outfit to make it easier to wear and move around in, I didn't really have any problems with it, and when I wore it, it looked more like a maxi dress than a kameez. I'm glad I got to wear a light colour like this (since I usually go for darker, richer colours) and it's also given me a chance to buy from a Facebook seller who I haven't bought from before.