As I mentioned last week, I went on a little shopping spree around the holidays. I’ve got a few Heartbreaker (now known as Heart of Haute due to a trademark issue) dresses to tell you about, and this week I’m starting with the Melinda in size medium. First up, here’s me:
Let’s begin with the color. This dress is very pink-looking on the Heart of Haute website:
It’s not appearing on the Pin Up Girl Clothing website any more, but they were selling it too, and their photos were much more red:
I was relieved to see that in reality it’s somewhere in between. My photo is much more accurate. I was hoping it would be distinctively red, but not too bright and Christmas-y, as this dress is really best suited to the fall, in my opinion.
Next up, the flannel fabric. I love it. It’s very soft, yet a little bit stiff so it maintains its shape well. It has a little bit of fuzziness to it, kind of like a worn out flannel shirt. It’s very cozy and comfortable.
However, I do have some complaints.
- An all too common problem, the sleeves are a little too tight, especially in the armpits. I can’t lift my arms above my shoulders without pulling the whole dress with it.
- Second, I hate the loose string belt loops. The opening is nearly twice the width of the belt and it’s placed slightly below center instead of in the true middle of the waistband, so the belt slides down throughout the day. The string loops also feel delicate, like they could be pulled out if they get caught even the least little bit (this has happened with another Heart of Haute dress I own).
- And here comes the really big problem: The boob cups are totally wonky. It looks fine in my photo because I’m standing up perfectly straight and am angled away from the camera a bit, but in actuality the neckline is super wide open and floats away from my body like a particularly bad bra gore. Here’s a photo looking down:
So much cleavage! If I slumped my posture even a little bit or leaned over the slightest bit (like when I’m, say, sitting down anywhere), the neckline opened up to the point that you could pretty much see down my shirt.
My first instinct is to assume there’s not enough space in the boob cups and my breasts are pushing the neckline away from my body. However, in this closeup you can see that there’s actually quite a bit of unfilled space in the lower, outer corners of the boob space:
Additionally, I tried the dress on with a bra that seriously minimizes my boobs and the floating away from my body phenomenon actually appeared worse.
And it’s not just me. Look at these images from the Heart of Haute site. In the first one, you can see a big shadow on the right side of the model’s chest where the fabric seems to be floating away from her body in much the same way it does on myself. In the second, note that the right shoulder is floating away from her body, as if the dress had been pulled up and back.
If I pinched a little of the fabric at the inner point of the triangle, or if I pulled the shoulders up higher, it seemed to help the issue. So I’m going to try altering the top a bit (and will write about it here of course). But this does not bode well for my assessment of Heart of Haute’s boob-friendliness.
I’ve added bust darts at about 45 degrees counterclockwise from the top, but I didn’t have to deal with trim.