Before you go - pick a way to stay up-to-date!
Alison Reviews Kiss Me Deadly’s Vargas Dress
October 29, 2008 by Alison
With so many women out there wanting the ‘perfect’ body and going to unthinkable lengths to get it, we’re delighted that more and more designers are bringing out sexy Shapewear to help women feel good about themselves. Kiss Me Deadly‘s contribution to this ‘trend’ comes in the shape of their Vargas Girdle Dress; it certainly looks gorgeous, but will it be comfortable and will it help Alison stop worrying about her unwanted lumps and bumps?
Kiss Me Deadly’s Vargas Dress
Get it at:La Magia (Delivery Free Worldwide)
Sizes: B – DD cup
Price: £39
Fit 5/5
Although my bra size is a relatively easily found 32DD I often find that bras that say they are a DD cup often just don’t fit properly; in recent times I’ve become less adventurous and instead tend to stick with the brands I know will fit me. I was amazed therefore that the bra part of this dress fit extremely well and seemed to compensate brilliantly for the fact that one of my boobs is not far off a size smaller than the other. The rest of the dress fit like a glove and smoothed every last lump and bump on me!
Support 4/5
The Vargas dress supported my ‘problem zone’ very well; my tummy was held in place by the reinforced powermesh panel and there was not a wobble to be felt! The bra is well made and the underwire and band did do a great job in supporting me; I did feel that perhaps the fabric used on the cups could have been a little firmer as the lace was slightly too slack. As my boobs aren’t of very large proportions I wasn’t terribly worried about this, as they were still held in place and I felt secure that I was being supported well.
Style 5/5
I love the Vargas dress with its beautifully retro style and six garter tabs for stockings. The day I chose to wear it for the first time was one of those days when Gok Wan would have had his work cut out for him; however as soon as I put the dress on I felt amazing! It was sexy to say the very least and I would have had no trouble at all standing in a shop window with a smile on my face!
Comfort 5/5
As so often happens with shape wear, you benefit from its pulling in qualities, but you suffer (silently of course!) in the comfort department. The Vargas Dress however not only looks gorgeous, it pulled me in without cutting off my circulation and I could eat a meal without feeling like I had a large elastic band around me.
Price 5/5
Sexy shape wear is becoming increasingly popular though unfortunately it often comes with a hefty price tag, so it was a welcome change to see that the Vargas Dress is extremely good value at only £39.
Verdict:
What more can I say other than: Go get a Vargas Dress – it’ll make you feel and look gorgeous – and with a choice of white, black and limited edition colours, there’s one to suit everyone!
Share this article:
Filed Under Sophisticate, U.K., U.S., Vixen
Tagged: Kiss Me Deadly, La Magia
I have to disagree with this review…..I am finding the Kiss Me Deadly label to be a big disappointment actually. Their choice of materials are flimsy and unsupportive, leading to ill fitting foundationwear. My friend who I would normally consider to have quite sexy figure, recently bought the Vargas Dress. It made her figure very ‘boxy’ ! with no shape at the waist whatsoever. The cut was all wrong and the material not adequate for the support needed. It looks great on the model…..but in reality that just does not transfer. Also I find their customer service to be slack. I have waited 4 weeks and still no sign of the catalogue I ordered.
Sorry but thumbs down for this corselette……. and sort out your customer service KMD!
I’m sorry to hear you had a bad experience with the Vargas dress, Tabitha. If you would like any advice on other shapewear or you would like to contact us to ask any other questions, do drop us an email at
thegirls@knickersblog.com
Alison
Wow, I have to completely disagree, I LOVE my vargas dress so much I have 2 – one in black and one in black and red. they are perfect in every way. Also, I would recommend buying from La Magia, perfect customer service, highly recommended!
Are they pretty true to size…I am a tini 32 B. I am excited to see what this sweet little retro number is gonna do for me!
They are true to size, Debralee! I still love my Vargas dress for its look and practicality
Alison x
I love the look of vargas dresses but am wairy of kiss me deadly. Not for the quality or customer service (la magia) – but because the small size girdle i bought before was HUGE. They hadn't sent me the wrong size. My waist is about 23" and my hips about 37", I'm more interested in vargas dresses for the look and the smoothing effect on natures bumpy curves- not for tummy control.
I wish they had guides as with corsets on the website (and la magia) saying what waist/hips measurements fit each size be it small medium of large. When I tried to buy the god-awful looking Spanx (different company) at least all the sites were forthright about the sizes made not being suitable for me.
p.s I don't corset train myself but alot of people into the retro style do, an expansion of the shapewear ranges to include much smaller waists/sizes would seem to make sense. Even size 0's have lumps and bumps! It's what women look like without airbrushing.
I love the Vargas girdle dress! I found that I had to order up one band size to accommodate my broad back and shoulders, but the dress fit perfectly otherwise. If you have questions or concerns about fit, there's nothing wrong with e-mailing Vicki at La Magia or even Catherine Deadly herself with questions. I've found both ladies to be extraordinarily helpful when you're trying to figure out where exactly you fit on the size continuum.
I'm a 30E and bought this, as adviced, in 34B. Surprisingly enough it fits. The cups are fine and the little support they offer is enough since being a 30E I don't really need a lot of it. The only real downside is the fact that the fabric on the bra part is cheap looking and has many elastic threads poking out, which is, well, ugly (and yeah, flimsy as stated in the review). I also happen to have an extremely short back and high hips which means this thing is way too long for me, but it actually doesn't matter, it sits very well anyway. No lumps any more! Also this thing is very very comfortable – I don't even notice it exists!
Hello,
I'm sorry to hear you had a bad experience with the Vargas. I would never argue that our things are right for everyone; its like jeans, some styles work for some figures, others not so much.
With respect to customer service . . . well, the fact that I'm answering this many moons after it was written probably gives you some idea how pushed for time we were/are. I think at the point you wrote this there was me (disabled, works from home doing the design and management and whatnot) and then we had one person stuck in a warehouse in Sheffield part time parcelling out goods. We actually abandoned the catalogues because firstly, our stock levels shifted to be a reliable way to show what people could have, and secondly, as you rightly point out, they often never arrived. Plus at the time we were focussed on wholesale, not retail; so customer service was more concentrated on retailers rather than individuals.
If you want super supportive retro foundation wear, by the way, I really recommend the Rago products. Ours are designed to be the kind of thing you can wear to eat a big meal in and then dance in, Rago will give you a completely different shape instead!
Hello,
ah . . . the girdle sizing is my fault. When we started we used me as a fit model, because at the time I was roughly a 34B and about a 10 heading on for a 12 on the hips. Around the time we developed the girdle, I'd got roughly a dress size bigger, and hadn't really noticed – I worked in an eating disorder unit for 4 years, so I'm extremely well trained in not obsessing over weight and size, plus I have an inexplicable ability to look like I have a much smaller bum than I actually do! What this meant was that all the girdles came out at least 1 size bigger than they were labelled. We sorted it out on runs since then, so the small is now the same as the rest of our smalls, but the longline girdles start at a waist size of 24 inches. Our usual sizing is outlines here: http://www.kissmedeadly.co.uk/about/sizing
The Vargas dresses, being bra sized, do go down lower than this in the waist.
Whilst I recognise that there are smaller ladies who want shapewear, its quite a small market (no pun intended), and we've generally found that lines that run large tend to sell through better than lines that run small for us. We can't add an extra size to our range without adding about 30% to our minimum spend for producing a range, because of the way manufacturers work, so it hasn't been financially feasible to extend the sizing range so far. But, we've just started to manufacture some of the shapewear in the UK, where we can do smaller quantities, so it is something we're looking at again.
thanks,
Catherine
Glad to hear it fits
It sounds like you have an old one – we had some from the last run (we have changed factories and fabrics since then, the lace is now arguably flimsier and yet seems to suffer less from the elastic problem) where the lace was pulling quite fast. We were struggling alot with that factory. If you drop me a line on the website we'll see what we can do for you.
thanks,
Catherine