A couple of months ago, I spotted that Playful Promises had a sale on, and that they also stock Kiss Me Deadly pieces, which have been (among many others!) on my wishlist for a long time. It took me a long time to make my decisions, but the one piece I was absolutely certain about getting was the Kiss Me Deadly Vargas Dress. I decided to go for the cupless version since my fairly well endowed chest doesn’t match up with the rest of my body, meaning that it would have been difficult to get a good fit all over. There are two colour ways available in this dress, red and black, but I decided black was the one for me since the red looks pretty bright and I’m pretty certain it would have showed up spectacularly under most clothes, and I didn’t intend to keep this for just wearing inside the house!
Unfortunately though, the black wasn’t available in the size I would have usually chosen for myself, the small. I checked out the size chart and my measurements (currently around 27″ waist and 38″ hips) put me just above the small, and just into medium, so I decided to go for that, although I did worry that it wouldn’t have the “sucking in” power I hoped it would.
So how did it do?
While I think it looks and feels awesome, it is slightly too big and doesn’t have the compression power I was looking for. You can see in these photos that it’s wrinkling a little around my waist and at the back. It’s also slightly too big on my underbust (around 27″ snug) so has a slight tendency to ride up there. Despite this though, I do love wearing it because it feels amazing – I would have preferred to have a better size though, so maybe in future (if it goes on sale in my size!).
It has adjustable bra-like straps at the top, and the cupless section dips at the front to come slightly under the bust, as you’d expect. The bottom of the dress has garter tabs to attach to stockings, so I hooked mine up to a pair of Silky Smooth Knit Stockings – I got these a while ago with the intention of doing a post with a comparison of differently priced stockings, these being the cheapest (at £1.50). Unfortunately that never happened, oops! But at least you’re seeing them now, and for reference, they’re not bad actually! If I wore stockings more regularly, I’d probably buy a few pairs of these since they’re really cheap and didn’t ladder throughout a day of wear (and enthusiastic office dogs), which is almost a record for me. Anyway, on with the review! The garter tabs were actually one downside to this piece (I’m not counting the sizing as a downside to the product itself since that’s my fault for choosing badly), as the rest of it was very good quality. The problem with them for me is that they’re not adjustable – stockings can come up to various heights on me, these ones for example are quite high up the leg, probably because they’re “one size”. I occasionally found that they slipped down my legs, especially in between my thighs, since I couldn’t shorten the garter tabs. They are metal tabs though as opposed to plastic ones, with a rubber part (what’s that called?!) to hold it in place, so that’s always a plus as they’re sturdier and hold the stockings in place better.
The dress itself is made up of powermesh, some areas stretchier than others and some double layered, to provide more support in certain places. It leads to an interesting design that doesn’t come across particularly well in these photos. It fastens at the top of the back with a single line of hooks and eyes that go down to my waist.
So overall, I do love the Vargas dress, but this one isn’t perfect for me due to the sizing. If you want to see how it looks a bit better fitted, Miss Victory Violet has a brilliant review. I do really really want the Vargas Longline Girdle now though, so I’ll be waiting eagerly for another sale (thanks new house and furniture for taking all my money!) so I can purchase that.
The other pieces I’m wearing in this post if you’re interested are my blue Cleo Lucy briefs (from the Panache Factory sale of course!) and the Ewa Michalak Diament bra with padded straps in a 65G – review of this to come soon!
