Recently I was contacted by Choies.com and was offered some free products in exchange for my honest review (which is exactly what you will get). I had never heard of them before. There are a couple other Asian/China based online clothing stores that I have ordered from in the past, so I was excited to see what they had to offer. I was given a dollar amount to choose whatever I wanted. Here is my review of the website, my experience, and quality of the items I received.

I'm going to break this down into sections so I an do a thorough review and it won't be all over the place. I know how it is to want to learn about a company and/or product so I do a google blog search. Then I find websites or blogs that barely touch on what I want to know. So here it goes.

THE WEBSITE:

• Upon first glance the website appears to be from a well established company(s). Browsing the different categories is easy. It's well maintained and has options for you to create wishlists which I personally love.

• When you hover over an item, you have the option for quick view as well as go to the items page which some people may find annoying if you simply want to go directly to the item (because often you will click "Quick Review" by accident. Others may love this feature because to them it makes their shopping quicker.

• On the item's page you will find the typical details, delivery information, photos to other products as well as reviews. 

• The images for the products are very clear and offer you multiple angles. I hate when I see a semi far away photo of some model wearing the item and you can't get a good look at the details.

• They are connected to social media such as Facebook, twitter, youtube and instagram which tends to lend more credibility to a company as well as gives you options for sharing products.

Overall, I really like the website. It's well designed, easy to navigate, and looks like some actual money and care was put into unlike a lot of other Asian/China based websites that look like cheap copies of each other.

THE INVENTORY & PRICES:

• Overall is appears they have a good selection of items. Almost every category you go to has multiple pages of items for you to choose from.

• Prices, oh the prices. This website boasts it's cheap or "affordable" selection of items. Well, I'm on the fence about this. Their hats for instance cost on average $21. To me that is a bit expensive. Their shirts range from $11 (on sale) to $45-ish. They also have several jeans for $30+. 

• Their shipping is free. Now this might counterbalance the fact that their items are more expensive than your average online China website (such as dresslink.com). I don't believe the price vs free shipping is really worth it for all the products. You will have to make your own decision on that.

On a scale from 1-10 (10 being the most ridiculously high priced items ever), I'd have to give this website a 4. You can find a lot of these items either cheaper or for the same price from other websites as well as local stores. On the flipside, some items are very reasonably priced so it's just under being 50/50 for me.

PROCESSING TIME + SHIPPING TIME:

• This is another important section when I'm reading reviews so I wanted to be sure to add it to this one. I placed my order on 1/14/2015. It took 7 days for them to process my order. It took It also took 7 days for me to receive my order.
• Impressive shipping time! Considering most Asian/China based stores (whether it's ebay, clothing stores, etc) take a significant amount of time for delivery, especially if it's free to the buyer. Companies tend to use the cheapest, slowest form of shipping when it's at their expense. I give their shipping speed 5/5 stars!
• I wish their processing time was a bit shorter. If they reduced that by a couple days then I'd have to say this was the best Asian/China based store I've ever purchased from - shipping wise - and I've ordered from a lot!

 Now, onto the review of each individual item that I received! I know this is the most important part, right? The website is good, ok got it. The shipping is fast, excellent. Now what about the clothes? Well, since the prices were kind of hefty vs what I was given to spend, I was only able to select one item of clothing along with a pair of knee high socks and 3 accessories. Shall we proceed?

 First item up is this Red Plaid Long Sleeve Shirt Dress with Bowknot Belt that cost $29.90. When I saw this dress I fell in love. I immediately knew I'd wear some leggings underneath with my black wedge boots. Voila! Instant outfit in my head. I was really looking forward to trying this one on. The photo above is true to color. It came nicely packaged in this heavy duty bag.

Just like the images on the website show, it came with a separate belt that is long enough for you to tie it into a bow. Excuse my crappy bow tying skills! Ha! It buttons up all the way on the front. A few of the buttons felt like they were about to pop up. There were also a bunch of strings that I easily pulled off from around the button area. So at first glance, the quality wasn't that great.

I was not blessed with a big chest (I'm only a size A cup) and because of the bunching around the umm, let's say boobage area, at the slightest movement of my arms the top button popped open. As you can see exhibit A in the photo above. This would not be a big deal if I wore some type of shirt underneath (maybe a really thin tank). I'm not sure how great the image is, but can you see the bunching that I'm talking about? Because of this, it makes it really tight around my upper arms and shoulder area. It restricts movement in the sense that you feel you can't really move your arms without ripping the material. And I am a skeleton. I got this in a size S (small), so maybe I should have went for a M (medium)?

The bottom is quite short (you would definitely need to wear leggings or maybe shorts underneath). It's also cut at varying angles so it's high, low, high, low all the way around which oddly enough, makes your butt look bigger. I tried to take a photo of my own butt, however it proved too difficult and every time came out blurry. I don't know how teenagers do it?

As far as the waist area goes, it fit me nicely. The belt really helped to make it more form fitting. I was hoping you could see the shortness in this photo, I apologize. Just take my word on it! And I am 5'5" and weight 110lbs - like I said, I'm a skeleton. And this dress basically fit me like a glove.

Why yes, this is a very awkward "selfie" in a mirror but atleast you can see the length. The back is a bit longer than the front because of the angles at which it is cut. However if I simply move, or heaven forbid bend over, you could see all my lady bits. So again, I recommend wearing something under it! Leggings are a great option!

Here is another crappy "selfie" shot, but a bit better than the previous one. You can get a better idea of the oddness of how it's cut at the bottom. But somehow, I really like that about it. Because of the material, it doesn't really "flow" or "swoosh" around when you walk - which I really like! Less booty exposure that way. I almost neglected to mention the sleeve length. It isn't really a long sleeve like the description says, it's more like a quarter length (I'm not sure exactly what it's called, BUT it appears to be that way on purpose). So you don't have to worry about someone thinking you didn't get the correct size, it looks as if it wasn't supposed to have long sleeves. I hope that made sense! :)

Since I only was able to select 1 item of clothing, I feel it's almost unfair to base my whole review on it. Because dresses are a harder thing to have fit you, especially when ordering online. A shirt, jacket, or even shoes would be a whole other ball game. However, I will tell you the bottom line when it comes to this particular dress. It looks adorable. Overall it fits really well. It is snug around my shoulder/chest area which makes it hard for the very top button to stay buttoned. I feel this could be corrected with a tank underneath so your goodies aren't on display (unless you actually have cleavage unlike myself and want to show it off then skip the under shirt). Once I pulled the few random stray strings off, it seemed pretty well made. I might want to reinforce the buttons with a bit more sewing. Whenever you have a snug fitting piece of clothing, it puts more strain on the buttons. So ensuring they are sewed on properly is basically for "safety" - for a lack of a better word - so buttons don't go flying off in public. The material wasn't the softest thing, but it wasn't scratchy. Overall, I really like this dress and will definitely wear it out in public somewhere soon.

Since this post turned out to be crazy long, I decided to do a separate post on the few accessory items I received. Be on the lookout for that post (it will be shorter, I promise). And I want to pat whomever read this all the way through on the back. This was a hefty post! I hope I went into enough details so you can decide whether or not to give this website a try! 

Leave a comment below telling me if I missed anything in this review that you would like to know more about. I'd also love to hear if any of you have ordered from this website before or if you plan to in the future.