Mini Couture Dolls: Review
So I thought I’d post a review about my experience with Mini Couture dolls by Kev Yiu, both about my experience with ordering and completion/communication and of the actual items since this whole experience has been a little hectic.
Full review below the cut!
I ordered three things in late November of 2017; one Super Sailor Moon doll, a Neo Queen Serenity dress and a Princess Serenity dress (for my custom bandai NQS and PS dolls). I shot him a message after seeing the photo of SSM on his IG, I’d been eyeing his dolls for a while but this one really gave me the push to order from him because I love her face and the design of her fuku (this will be important later) Ordering was pretty easy; I sent him a message via the Facebook page and got an automated response, telling me that the wait time for custom dolls would be about five months from order-to-delivery and that they’d get back to me soon. A couple hours later I got a real response; they gave me the prices (reasonable; 240$ for the doll and about 100$ for each dress) and said they’d have no problem with the requests I’d made about the Princess/Queen dresses (I wanted the white princess dress pictured, and for the NQS dress to have white bodice detailing to match), mentioned the 5-month wait again which I need to note I absolutely had NO problem with this wait time, I’d expect as much from a popular customizer and well-known, successful fashion designer. I’ve waited longer for lesser dolls and wait times for BJDs are often twice and even 3 times as long, and I actually assumed it would take longer than 5 months despite being told that because he mentioned he had orders from a year ago that haven’t been finished yet. They sent me an invoice for 40%, I paid the whole order off by the 1st of December 2017. Now I’m going to condense this part because originally I typed up every single instance of communication over the year with him, but it was too long and I didn’t want it to be a text wall. Rather spend more time talking about my actual doll and dresses. Long story short, the communication regarding my order was lacking. If I asked him for an update, he would get back to me immediately. But the problem is that I always had to ask him first. After about five months, the given wait time for my order, I started getting pretty anxious that he wasn’t providing updates without me having to ask for them first. This order was almost 400$, I feel like it’s okay to expect that I be given updates especially after the wait time has passed. There were several instances where Kev said my order was finished and would be shipped on x date, but then the date would pass and I wouldn’t hear from him. This happened multiple times over the year and while I can blame myself for not being more diligent and asking him or reminding him before the date, I also think it’s pretty annoying to have to ask him. If you can’t ship the item when you say, maybe don’t tell me you can or even better, let me know before that date, that it will be later than anticipated, rather than ghosting when that date has passed. There was one time where he forgot about my order, another time where he misplaced the package in his studio and when it finally came time for him to really ship the item, he put her in the wrong fuku and I had to let him know that it was the wrong outfit. That was a little scary lol. He did, however, apologize profusely every single time I spoke to him, and he gave me free shipping which was likely not cheap, considering he’s in China and I’m in the US and the order is pretty large/expensive. I don’t think he means to be so flaky and I think he really, really cares. I just thought it would be important to talk about my experience so that future consumers have a good idea of what they should expect and how to work around it. Now I don’t remember when this happened, but sometime after I placed my order he changed the Super Sailor Moon outfit design to this one. I didn’t think much of it, since he said only the dresses needed finishing when I asked him so I figure he’d already made my fuku with the original design, but I was still pretty worried because while the new design is nice, it’s not as nice as the one I ordered and I wildly preferred both the coloring and the shape of the original fuku, with that beautiful iridescent pink bow. It looks exactly how I imagine Super Moon should look if the manga were colored and it looked magical. The new one looks like the Sera Myu uniform/ a re-imagined vintage Bandai SM outfit but...that’s not really what I wanted. Eventually I decided to ask him about the Super fuku, and he sent me a photo of the new design. This is partially my fault because I wasn’t more diligent about it and I didn’t stress that i wanted the old version, but I feel he should have asked me beforehand, since I sent him a photo of the old design when I made my order. It should always be assumed that what someone ordered, is exactly what they want. I still liked the new design, though, and it had been over eight months since I ordered my stuff so I decided to accept it rather than wait even longer. We’re getting to the end here! Finally, on the 31st of December 2018, my package arrived! Yay! The box came well packed, thankfully, and the doll’s packaging is lovely; a black window box with ‘’Mini Couture by Kev Yiu’’ laser-printed in gold metallic on the window, with a black matte slip-cover that has the same design on the front. Very nice, simplistic, designer packaging and I love that he made his own packaging for his dolls. Or had it made. You get what I mean. This packaging would be beautiful for someone that wants to keep their doll NIB. My doll came in the box, dressed in her Princess Serenity outfit! She’s held in place with thread which made it very easy to unbox her without snagging the dress or her hair:
I’m going to start with the doll and then get into the outfits later. Her face is hand painted and sealed, and it’s beauuuutiful. He has several different face styles for Moon but I specifically requested this one because it perfectly captures her face in SuperS and in the Manga and I’m very happy with how it looks in person. She’s exactly what I think of when I imagine a manga-accurate Sailor Moon doll.
Her lovely, shiny nylon hair is machine rooted and styled by Kev, and it looks lovely. However, being doll hair obsessed, I already planned on restyling it myself because I prefer the way I do SM’s odangos; It looks more accurate to her design and I just…can’t leave a doll’s hair alone ever lmao. Perfect hair for the general public is usually imperfect to me. This is no criticism of Kev, I’m just very particular about doll hair and I almost always restyle dolls. Even my Sailor Moon DD got flat ironed the day she got to me. So I gave it a wash, spruced up the bangs with some Volks water wax, gave her a good straightening and redid the odangos. I also pulled up the little tendrils into the pigtails because I personally just didn’t like the look of them and I prefer her without them, luckily they tuck right inside of the odangos:
Much better! The body is this body that you can find on Aliexpress pretty easily, and I think it was the best choice for these dolls. The skinny limbs and the long, graceful fingers are pretty spot-on for the manga designs, and I like that she’s so tiny lol. A good inch and a half shorter than my FRs, around the same size as an Azone PN or Momoko. The articulation is sufficient and I prefer more basic articulation rather than action figure-esque joints, so I’m pleased with the body! I actually really really really love this doll, especially after her hair’s been done, and it’s making me second guess my plan to use the Princess Serenity dress on my Beauty Change moon doll because she just looks so perfect in it. Onto the dresses! She came in the box with her Princess Serenity outfit, so that’s the first one I looked over and played with.
The dress is I N C R E D I B L E. It’s beautifully tailored and sewn together, the beadwork is flawless and the skirt is massive, the train goes a good seven inches behind her and spreads at least 5 inches around her on every other side. I have literally no complaints about the dresses, I’ll even go as far as to say that the dresses alone are worth 200$ each, I can’t imagine how much time it took for each dress to be finished. You can tell he’s a successful fashion designer. Also a sidenote; I love this face so damn much. Kev has several different Usagi faces for each season and form that she takes in the anime, manga and Crystal but this one is my favorite. The faces from SuperS are my favorites by far and come the closest to the Manga designs imo, and something about this face is so versatile. She looks wise enough to be NQS, innocent enough to be Princess Serenity and powerful enough to be SSM. The NQS dress is just as nice, with even more tailoring on the dress for the ‘mermaid’ shape, and layers of lace over it. I’m honestly awestruck at these dresses!
My only gripe is that NQS’ dress is too small to fit the custom bandai doll it’s meant for; I can get it to close somewhat in the back, though, and it looks flawless otherwise, so I don’t care. I knew that would be a possibility because the body he uses is very small and petite, about Azone M size in the chest, and the dress looks amazing either way and I don’t blame him for it being a tight fit since it was made to fit his dolls. I can always add some longer velcro to the back so that it will close fully, though honestly the doll is so beautiful it’s making me rethink the concept of using the dresses for other dolls. I might have to get the Giochi Princess and Queen dolls for the custom Bandai girls instead lol. The Super outfit is nicer than I thought it would be, especially since I was already disappointed that the design is different from the one I ordered, but I do have some issues with it.
My problem is that her back bow is just…missing? Lol? Like it’s not there. Blank space. I didn’t notice until after I dressed her and I was very confused and disappointed:
Other than that issue, I think the fuku, despite my preference for the other design, is incredible quality! The stitching is so intricate and tiny, the ‘wing’ armored sleeves gigantic like they should be, and are sewn directly into the fabric layers with a very tiny stitching pattern, she even has the breastplate lines that she has in the anime! It feels very thick and heavy and well made, I’m in love with the construction of it. Panties are sewn into the inside, and it’s very tight and fitted to the body. Stunning.
The other problem, which I didn’t anticipate, is that her gloves are stained; it looks like the red from the top of the glove started bleeding into the white portion which stresses me out because it could potentially stain her arms:
I sent Kev a message right after I saw these issues and he got back to me immediately with an apology, and promised he’d ship a bow and new gloves to me and urged me not to try the stained ones on the doll which I thought was very, very nice of him. Outside of his communication issues I feel he is very attentive and always gets back to me shortly after I message him. He sent me a tracking number for the new bow and gloves shortly after we spoke (about a week later), but after two weeks or so I realized the package still hadn’t been sent to the post office for whatever reason; I happened to be moving at the end of January, so I sent him another message and asked about the package and that I wouldn’t be able to have it forwarded to my new address (which is several hours away from my old house). He was kind enough to print a new label with my new address and it was delivered on February 4th (so over a month after I’d gotten my doll):
Much better! The cuffs are made with a different fabric to prevent staining, and the bow is gorgeous! You’ll notice that where the red and white meet, it looks stained but this is because of the excess red fabric under the glove showing through (I checked lol) which I should be able to remove by turning the gloves inside out and cutting off the excess. I’m very thankful that he was able to send me the missing pieces, though it’s disappointing that they were missing in the first place. Unfortunately these gloves might go to waste- I am altering this outfit. I’ve removed her frontal bow and will be making a new one, because I think it just looks a little tacky, almost like a christmas ornament, and it’s overshadowing the gorgeously-sewn details of the rest of the fuku. I have several different fabric options for this and depending on my choice, I might have to make new gloves to match the bow. I’m also thinking of replacing her waist-ribbons with something a little more sleek, such as a gold ribbon and white satin ribbon. This is not meant to be a disrespect to his work, but I got something different from what I ordered and I want to alter this outfit to better fit my vision of what SSM should look like. I’ve done this before with SM dolls (like my customized Excellent Team Saturn or my custom Chara Talk ESM) and I’m confident I can do it with this outfit too. Let’s get onto the accessories-
The accessories are very nice. He included a Gashapon Kaleido-moon-scope which is the perfect size for the dolls, and a NQS tiara. I’m not going to use either of these pieces; I prefer the SSM from the S season so she’s getting a Heart Moon Rod eventually, and I have a 3-D printed tiara and staff for my NQS doll already which I covered in white iridescent pigment to match her dress.
SSM’s Tiara, pearl barrettes and Odango Shields attach with pins that you poke into the head which is soooo perfect imo, and coincidentally exactly what I plan on doing with my other SM dolls lol so I’m very happy with that! It looks seamless and realistic and I’m very happy with them. There’s also a lovely pair of metal crescent earrings, which work for the fuku and with the princess/queen outfits. The dresses came with plain white heels and SSM came with very nice painted boots.
So I’m going to give some bullets as to what my pros and cons are with this whole experience.
Pros:
-He’s very polite and responds within a matter of hours, which I love.
-His work is stunning and he seems to work very hard (sometimes to his own detriment, like taking orders when he already seemingly has tons)
-He seems to really care about his customers and their orders. Nobody is perfect, everybody makes mistakes (~~~Everybody Has Those Days~~~) and he is very apologetic and quick to rectify the issue when he’s made a mistake. I think he’s a genuinely good person and very passionate about what he does, whether it’s dolls or fashion.
Cons:
-He didn’t communicate enough- I can blame myself for not contacting him frequently or being as diligent as I should have been, but- I shouldn’t have had to keep asking for updates. I will, however, say that he’s VERY quick to reply if you send him a message, I don’t think I’ve ever waited longer than a day to hear from him, which is especially impressive considering he has a full time job as a designer along with a butt load of doll commissions.
-The flaky time estimates. If you can’t ship my item or complete my order by a certain date, either don’t tell me that you can or contact me before that date and let me know that it’s going to be late. I don’t like that I had to ask him for updates instead of receiving them without asking. I don’t mind a long wait, I’m actually completely satisfied with my order despite the issues with the SSM fuku, my biggest problem is the lack of communication regarding the completion and shipping of my order.
-I don’t like that he’s updating his designs while completing orders. I think he should be keeping track of who ordered what and when, so that he knows which design to use, and to ask his customers if they’d like the updated design or the old one.
I think he overextended himself and took too many orders while simultaneously working fulltime as a successful fashion designer and wanted to please everyone, and it just didn’t work out.
Recently he’s stopped taking commissions and will now make stock for immediate sale through his upcoming website, and I think that’s the best route for now. I think his dolls are stunning, the quality of the outfits is unreal and frankly a HUGE deal for the price, and I think if he irons out the problems with communication and taking too many orders that everyone would be happy- including himself.
So my final thoughts:
-Give it some serious thought before you order and make sure that you can tolerate a long wait time, because this isn’t going to be a quick process (which is normal for custom-made items from any brand). -Be aware that communication might be flaky and to take every shipping/completion estimate with a grain of salt. Be more diligent than me. -Keep in mind that what you order might not be the same as what you get, because he updates and changes his designs all the time. Follow his social media, especially his Instagram. If you see a new design and prefer/dislike it, let him know rather than just suck it up like me. It worked out and I love the outfit I received, but it’s best to make sure before you even order. -Don’t be afraid to speak up. I can’t, in good faith, entirely recommend ordering from him until he’s made improvements to his ordering process and communication. I love my doll to death and the dresses are worth more that what I paid imo. But unless you’re very patient and very attached to his dolls, I’m not sure this is the best choice for you. Usagi is one of my top favorite dolls, she’s absolutely stunning and if Kev starts improving the issues I experienced I will be ordering at least a full set of Outers, maybe more!