An*Tai*Na Lolita shoes REVIEW! Antaina, Taobao shop :) Review model 9988B - tips and sizes!

Taobao shop and shoe factory An*Tai*Na makes Lolita shoes in every possible model and colour you could ever dream of!

They also create great cosplay, punk and other alternative fashion style shoes.

The prices are amazing - even including long distance shipping.

This is my review of my order from An*Tai*Na.

International orders are handled through email with the manager, missyoyo0510@gmail.com

I first browsed through Antainas Taobao site and settled for two pairs of low-heeled Lolita shoes, in gold and red. Model "9988B".

The model is inspired by Baby the Stars Shine Bright "Antique Ribbon Shoes" (<3 thanks to Lolita Fashion Mentor Shannon for info <3) but they are an original An*Tai*Na design, so don't worry about wearing a replica! :)

Miss Yoyo communicates in good English and is very helpful and friendly from start!

She is very concerned that you should order the right size in shoes straight away, and emailed me this picture as to how I should measure my foot:

It wasn't all that easy to measure my foot! I ended up getting different measurements all the time, but luckily I had purchased a pair of (wrong sized) 9988B before in Chinese size 42. 

My Bodyline shoe size is 255, and the 9988Bs in CH sz 42 are 265.

I would use Bodylines shoe size conversion chart to help choose the right shoe size, if you have trouble measuring. 

It's not as complicated as it looks! I.e. I have EU40 (European shoe size 40) that translates into Japanese size "M" 25.5 = 254 mm. M and W stand for Medium or Wide girth, how broad your foot is.

I emailed back and forth to Miss Yoyo, 'cause she insisted me to order a larger size than I thought would be good for me. She was very friendly even through all my insecurity how to make the right measurements, and when I decided to choose Chinese size 41 (25.5 cm shoe inner length), she was quick to make the final order for me!

It seems that the orders are made especially for you. My final email reached Miss Yoyo the 30th October, and she let me know that the factory needed 7-10 work days to complete the products.

Hi Maria,

Please browse the final order by following details:

Model 9988B:

http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a1z10.3.w1017-2293476668.37.0GAfuU&id=19245710680&

Color: one in gold and one in burgundy matt, please browse attached 2 photos,

Size: 41 (25.5cm shoes inner length),

USD 32/pair, total USD 64,

Shipping by register airmail to Sweden, USD 37.55, transit time: 12 to 20 working days (please attention: risk of lost parcels by post office system is around 1/100)

Paypal trade fee: USD 4.02

Order total amount: USD 105.57

Delivery plan: we need 7 to 10 days to finish your products,

Please advise parcel address and TEL NO., thank u,

We will send a new payment request within today, please attention it, thank u,

Greetings,

Yoyo

The communication was very clear indeed, Miss Yoyo sent attached photos on the products I wished to buy, as well as the internet link to strictly confirm that there was no misunderstanding when making the order! ^^

Now that is excellent customer service! :D

These are the shoes I ordered.

Price: 32 USD/ pair

Shipping: 37.55 USD

Paypal fee: 4.02

Order total amount: 105.57 USD = 689 SEK (ca 345 SEK per shoe! :)

The shoes where shipped from China (I got a tracking code :) 8th of November and I received the parcel 3 weeks later, the 25th of November.

 The outside of the parcel, plastic bag and brown packing tape.

 Two individually plastic wrapped shoe boxes.

An*tai*na*

 Handwritten colour, code and sizes are accurate!

The shoes are in one plastic bag together (I would have preferred that they are individually wrapped up in one small plastic bag each, so they don't touch each other, but the shoes looks perfect anyway! :)

 One big plastic bag for the shoes.

 Wiii! They are so pretty :D
On this photo, the far left red bow seems to be off-centred, but it is not.
The bows have some degree of moving freedom,
but when I checked they are attached properly and it is easy to centre the bow.
The bows do not deviate from the centre, when I wear the shoes either.

Logo in shoes

Waiting for my next coord ^^

I love these shoes - they make me so happy! :D

The details of the shoes are lovely. You can tell that they have put a lot of design into these shoes - The lace trim, the straps, the heart clasps and the bows!
I also love that the red shoes have dark brown wooden heels and that the gold shoes have lighter brown wooden heels - this makes them harmonise better colour-wise.

They are really comfortable as well and they fit my feet perfectly (probably thanks to Miss Yoyos thoroughness with sizing!).
I can't wait to get them in beige, brown and navy as well (:

REVIEW UPDATE  (1 March 2014) >>>
Over the past 3 months I've been wearing these shoes for several occasions.
They are amazingly comfortable, I've been wearing them for several hours at meet-ups, without feeling sore.
I'm definitely going to get them in more colour ways!

Review:

Did the items match the pictures on Taobao? 5/5 Absolutely!

Where the items of good quality? 5/5 Very good quality, great details.

How was the sellers communication? 5/5 plus stars for being thorough with sizing! :)

Cost versus quality? 5/5 Absolutely affordable!

New (3 months review update) > Comfortable? 5/5 Very comfortable, the heel height makes them gorgeous yet still easy to walk in. 

I'm giving An*tai*na model 9988B 5 out of 5 Hazelbelle nuts! :D

Hope you enjoyed this post!

Hugz/ Mary Hazelbelle

I've bought my first Lolita dress!

This is a BIG thing.

I practically really can't afford it... but who can wait for like forever to get your own first dress? (So there is a hole in my economy - but I'll try to sell some of my old stuff on Ebay to get more money! ;)

First and foremost, it has been so difficult to choose which Lolita style I want to belong to.
For me there are 3 big different Lolita "girly" styles: Goth, Sweet and Classic.
(Boy style and Aristocrat are not "girly")

I'm really not into black at the moment, so Goth was out of the question (even though there are some neat purple and red prints out there!)

Sweet is so wonderful! I love the Fairy Kei Lolita with lots of pastels...

But... when my browser eyes fell upon this beautiful Classic Lolita dress in Velvet Cream...

It was to die for - I just knew it when I saw it. 

That will be my first dress! :)

Infanta Pumpkin Carriadge Cinderella JSK 89.99 USD

Infanta is a Chinese Lolita Brand that comes in a variety of sizes and the brand shop is on Taobao (Chinese Ebay) (Link to Infantas shop on Taobao).

MissyTetra has several excellent posts and reviews on Infantas dresses - you can read them here. 

I am 176 cm long and I weigh 70 kg, and Infanta's size XL will fit me if I lose 1 or 2 kg's of water weight (no more sweets until I get that dress! ;) LOL) (I'm really an XXL according to their size guide, but they only sold this dress up to XL!)

Being that tall, I'm worried that the dress will be too short. When the dress arrives I'll see if I need a lengthening underskirt to go with it.

I chose to buy the dress from Light in the box, since taobao is so complicated. Tabao is cheaper (you can buy the same dress as I bought for only 498 yuan (81 USD), but you have to have a Chinese cell phone number to confirm the order. If you wish to buy from Taobao, you can use a shopping service - Hello Lace has a taobao guide if you wish to venture that.

I bought the dress from Light in the box, anyway. I have never ordered from them before, so I hope everything will go well!

I ordered a lace blouse and some stockings too.

Aristocrat Lolita Cotton Blouse 49.99 USD

It was important to me that the blouse and stockings are made of cotton, because I relly hate the feeling of cheap polyester against my skin!

Stockings cotton 30% off 7.99 USD

I actually started of looking at Ebay and Bodyline for my first Lolita dress. 

Bodyline is very cheap, but most of the clothes come in very small sizes - I have 2L or 4L even according to them, and very few items catered my size, so I was worried that maybe the items also would be to short. Bodyline seems mostly cater to Sweet, Gothic and Kuro Lolitas.

All Bodyline's blouses are made out of polyester by the way! That's a terrible material to have close to your skin. I'd never buy that material for a blouse. Cotton, linen, bamboo, silk - natural materials are the way to go!

On the other hand, Bodyline had a great line of very affordable shoes! It looked like it was the same items that were available at Light in the Box, but with 40 USD lower price!

So I bought these beauties from Bodyline:

Shoes 251 from Bodyline 40 USD (and 10 USD postage)

I usually always wear leather shoes, but both Peachie and Vanessa Lopa swear to the comfort of Bodylines shoes, so I have to give it a go! Plus the fact I couldn't find any Lolita style real leather shoes anyway...

I chose flats because I'm so tall, I really don't need to add more height :) And I think flats look really classy.

Ebay has a great Chinese Lolita seller: cosplay007. They have beautiful Lolita clothes for very cheap prices, and they tailor sew them especially for you! That is some good service :) They announce that they can make anything at all - so if you want to, you can design your own dress and send it over to them, and they will sew it for you. They have a wide range of fabrics and colours to choose from as well.

A quick google on cosplay007 gives different reviews - some love it (and they are willing to compromise quality for the low price) and some were very disappointed, because they had received the wrong colour etc.

I will give cosplay007 a shot in the future, because I would love to own a tailor made dress!

But for this first, I fell for Infantas beautiful dress :).

I bought a wig from Ebay. My hair is medium brown, so I chose a wig that is dark brown to add some variety. Having a fringe on your wig is great - because it looks more natural and if you have a different coloured wig from your eyebrows, you can cover your eyebrows with the fringe.

I chosed a classic wig look to complement my classic Lolita dress.

Dark Brown Wig from Ebay 8.54 USD

And of course I need a pretty bow!
I couldn't find a matching bow to the dress print anywhere on the internet (I think the Infanta dress print I chose is from last season). So I bought a bargain Velvet Big Bow from Ebay.

Cream White Velvet Bow from Ebay 4.99 USD

I also bought my bloomers from Ebay.

White bloomers with heart pocket approx. 24 USD (incl postage)

From the local Swedish thrift store - the Red Cross - I stumbled upon this darling real leather Grandma Handbag. It needs a little TLC and something Lolita added to it, but it cost only 30 SEK (4.6 USD)

Granny bag in real leather from the local thrift store - 4.6 USD

I'm thinking of adding some jewellery to my handbag: maybe something like this:

Classic lolita brown flower pearl tassel 18.99 USD

And my petticoat is from the Salvation Army, it cost 40 SEK (6.1 USD).

Petticoat from VILA found at the Salvation Army for 6.1 USD

So all in all, my whole first outfit cost me ca 1750 SEK or 269 USD. That is including postage and a parcel insurance for 5 USD at Taobao (Don't know if it was worth it, but I'm better safe than sorry!)

269 USD for the first Lolita outfit is rather cheap - Just to buy a lucky pack from a brand with perhaps 1 skirt or 1 blouse costs often even more. I could probably gotten a cheaper dress, but I'm not sure I would be happy with the quality.
So I feel very satisfied with the end costs!

I'll be even more satisfied when the mail comes with all my lovely new stuff! :D

And then I will post all the REVIEWS - of course! :D
<3 BIG HUGZ <3

Ps. Now I just have to get my paws on this one: Infanta's Cinderella Embroidery Coat! I LOVE!