REVIEW: LBD littleblackdress.co.uk

So, having being sucked in by pretty prom dresses, it was no hassle to keep exploring the site. I have not been given any financial reward or been sent any products for this review. But you never know, maybe in the future they’ll send me something so I can tell you all about their delivery speed and packaging… *subtle hint alert*

A Little Not Black Dress

So, it seems to me that littleblackdress.co.uk is all about shopping for that special show stopping outfit, whatever the occasion. Rather than your usual womenswear online retailer that sell all kinds of everything, they have collected together boutique and high street brands and only offer you the lovely, pretty dresses. In fact they claim to be “home to the world’s largest and finest collection of little black dresses.“ This could be true, however not all of the dresses are black. I saw one which was a rather distinctive shade of yellow. Regardless, I found it a delightful site to browse, as I was feeling in a girly mood. To complement that one perfect dress, they also offer a nice range of shoes and accessories to make the outfit complete.


I found the site really easy to navigate. I liked the option for searching by occasion, although I’m not entirely sure there will ever come a time that I require an outfit for a trip to the races. There are also easy to find menus which allow you to search in other ways, by style or brand for example. By this stage in my browsing I’d noticed quite a lot of beautiful but expensive dresses that were out of my price bracket so I decide to cut to the chase and click the ‘sale’ menu to see if there was anything on offer that I could afford. I was pleasantly surprised. There were a number of sale items that were a much more pocket friendly high street price and the more I browsed, the more I realised that the LBD team genuinely appear to have tried to cater for all budgets, which I really like. Personally, I tend to take inspiration from design tailoring and embellishment and then transfer that onto less expensive clothes, so this site is really good for me.

Purdy LBD

I liked the menu that allowed you to refine your search, particularly the slider that allows you to set your own price range. There are loads more options too – size, colour, boutique – a really detailed selection which really helps if you have a fixed idea of what you’re looking for. If you’re more of a browser or an impulse buyer then I’d search by occasion. This is where I found some inspirational choices outside of my usual sort of selection.


LBD is trying to be more than a mere online retailer – they seem to be building their profile to be more connected with their customer base. They have an online ‘magazine’ you can access through their site, essentially a blog which highlights useful offers from their designers, offers competitions and giveaways and also highlights interesting style stories. As a museum curator, I was immediately drawn to the article about the ballgowns exhibition at the V&A. They also have an active social media presence.




Pros

• Many pretty going out clothes all in one place *drools*
• Easy to navigate site with good search function and search refining options
• Clear layout, good pictures with nice level of zoom on the pictures
• Dresses, bags, shoes and bling. All you could want really
• Range of prices to suit all budgets

Cons

Gratuitous shoe picture

• I can’t quite figure out what their delivery charges and terms are, despite having clicked around the site. It appears that your items will be sent out from individual boutiques (which means you can get otherwise hard to find items from other countries – bonus) but LBD seem to coordinate the order. I can’t find any info about what this costs though…. Oh, here we go, took me 10 minutes searching but I found this – Delivery costs for each Merchant may vary, according to the delivery methods they offer.
• You have to organise any returns with the vendor directly, not with the LBD site, which begs the question, why not cut out the middle man and see if you can get the item cheaper directly from source? I suppose it’s the convenience of having all these lovely items from different retailers all together in a one stop shop that would prevent you from doing this.