Lascivious

So I attended The Lingerie Edit in January and had a whale of a time meeting all the people behind some amazing brands and torturing myself with lingerie that wouldn't be released for months. The Annie bodysuit by Lascivious is something that had pride of place at their stand and I basically spent 15 minutes zoning out just basking in how much I needed it. I kept in touch with the head of sales at Lascivious and she was kind enough to present everyone with 50% off press discounts. Naturally most spent their discounts almost immediately but I waited, and waited, and waited until the time limit on my discount almost ran out (and Lascivious were amazing enough to extend it for two months just in case) but FINALLY Annie was released and my wait was over. So with the help of my press discount and a birthday cheque, I was able to get Annie for a price I could actually afford to pay right now (new family member is taking all my money and she's not even home yet!). 

My order was dispatched exceptionally quick and appeared to be going smoothly except my delivery would have gone terribly wrong if I hadn't checked the tracking info on the day it was supposed to arrive. When you search for my postcode in any kind of address finder it always brings up the wrong address first. Obviously a postcode isn't unique to one building in a city and so whoever at Lascivious booked my delivery with their courier clearly input my postcode into an address finder and then didn't check if this actually was correct against the address I gave them. Which means I had to have my delivery diverted to a 'local' pick up shop, which took an extra two days and took my entire lunch break to pick up because otherwise some stranger in another building somewhere down the road would have ended up with my expensive lingerie and Lascivious would have proof of delivery to the wrong address. It's a situation where everyone loses out so no bueno. I've never had this happen to me before and i've been buying online for a long time. Hopefully this is just a one off and the person in charge of shipping at Lascivious was just having an unobservant day but if you do buy from Lascivious then I would recommend you double check your tracking info as early as possible. 

But other than that hitch, my Annie bodysuit arrived in perfect condition and with a large black storage box. And you all know how much I appreciate chic storage boxes.

   

So I ordered Annie in the smallest size available, which happens to be a size small. Annie only comes in sizes small, medium or large and I was anxious about that being too big but I wasn't going to pass up on my dream bodysuit. The fit surprises me. I'm a pear shaped individual, my hips and thighs are the widest part of my body, measuring 32.5" but it's the bottom half of this bodysuit that is loose on me. The top fits perfectly, i would say it's an almost ideal fit for my small bust. But the bottom half is loose, which is great because it means i can pull the waist over my sizely parts but it's not snug enough to stay in place (migrating to more southern places on my body) and if i sit down it wrinkles a lot. Due to the nature of the bodysuit though, when i wear the pieces together this is not really an issue, it doesn't swamp my waist and looks like a pretty decent fit, but i will probably only be able to wear the top separately. I feel without anything holding them up the bottoms will probably just slip down and the fabric would all bunch. So my advice is that the top fits like an XS and the bottoms fit like a S maybe? I'm also inclined to believe if you have a larger bust then you'd need to size up because the act of fitting tits into the top may cause the gap between the top and bottoms to become so wide you can't actually do up the hooks. But from a selfish stand point, this is a winner for small busts and i'm kind of a.o.k. with that because we so rarely get winners.

I would say the reason for the fit being like this is because the mesh fabric has only a small bit of stretch in it and rather than stretch to accommodate your body, the pattern has been cut large enough to fit as is. The mesh has a unique design with panelling details to give it some structure and shape. The bodysuit itself is made from a top and bottom that attach together with many (many) hooks and eyes. Both the top and bottom pieces also have sections that unhook to both customise the look and make it easier to put the garment on. The gusset on the bottoms fastens with two hook and eye fastenings which aren't ideal, i'd probably prefer poppers just to reduce the risk of them coming unhooked, but it will make peeing so much easier. 

As for wearability, this set is surprisingly comfortable, the fabric isn't abrasive on the skin at all, it's not restrictive and the only hassle is actually putting it on and doing up like 100 hooks and eyes, some of them behind your back (i'm someone who has zero dextrality when doing things i can't see, as referenced by one of my bra bands being only half fastened in these pictures...so I definitely deserve a medal for getting them all hooked and unhooked myself). As you wear the bodysuit and move about in it, some of the fastenings will come undone but meh, small price to pay for such an amazing feat of design. And when i say amazing I mean, my mind boggles at how many hours it must have taken to grade this piece and get it all to work. How long it took to get all the hooks to line up with all the eyes and then sew them in so neatly you can't even see any stitches. So far i've also not managed to put my nails through any of the mesh and even though when putting it on i've gotten a fair few hooks tangled and tugged on, so far no casualties. So whilst i will continue to be gentle with her, i'm pretty confident that it will take a lot of wear before there's any damage or degradation to this piece. 

I'm so impressed, I feel like I own a piece of wearable art and whilst the desire to get it framed and stuck on my wall is strong, instead I'm going to wear this piece endlessly. I'm already like a billion percent certain my outfit for the next Lingerie Edit in July will be high waisted black denim shorts with this baby underneath because Annie fits in so perfectly with my wardrobe. So basically what i'm trying to say is, it was five long months but Annie and I are reunited and it feels so good. Absence really does make the heart grow fonder and we're going to be inseparable from now on to make up for lost time. I wish these photos really did this piece justice, because it is stunning in person and really does look amazing on but you'll just have to take my word for it and oggle the model photos on the product page which really display Annie in all her glory.

*I purchased this piece with a 50% off press discount but all opinions are my own and i'd have definitely bought it at full price, it would have just taken me a lot longer to save for.