Rants & Raves: Dress Sense

Who: Dress Sense, Singapore

What: Buy or Rent designer evening gowns and special ocassion wear in Singapore

Where: Raffles City Shopping Centre, 252 North Bridge Road, #03-29A, Singapore 179103 OR Dress Sense Showroom and Office, Exchange Concepts Pte Ltd, 33 Ubi Avenue 3, Vertex #02-01, Singapore 408868

Vanessa from Dress Sense contacted me sometime in January this year to tell me more about what they offer – specifically because they recently started stocking a collection of plus-sized occasion dresses. Knowing that the collection has sizes for ladies between US 16 – 22 piqued my interests. It wasn’t until today that I managed to meet up with them to learn more about the 3-year old company that was set-up in May 2011!

I’m really excited to tell you that they carry as many as 27 brands for dresses and 9 other brands for accessories. Besides evening gowns and cocktail dresses that can be rented or purchased, they also rent and sell accessories such as evening bags, earrings, bangles and necklaces. Accompanying the must-haves to make your special day work the way you want it, they also sell the much needed fashion fix of Hollywood Fashion Tape, shapewear and Nu Bra.

For straight-sized fashionistas, their range is from US 0 – 14.

At a glance, this is what we’re looking at in terms of prices:

• Dresses: $100 – $350 for rental, $300 – $1000 for purchase.
• Accessories: $30-$80 for rental, $100-$400 for purchase
• Bags: $50-$120 for rental, $200-$450 for purchase
• Shapewear: $80-130 for purchase only

I think this is great and goes perfectly well with their tagline “Buy or Rent. Do what makes sense.” This certainly resonates well with the bargainista in me. While you need to understand that you have to shell out a bit more for quality, you should also do what is best for your own budget. It’ll be unfair to expect something really cheap to look like a million bucks but then again if you haven’t got a million bucks, you don’t have to look crap either!

What Dress Sense offers are options to fit a wide range of clientele!

There are currently 2 Dress Sense outlets catering specifically to occasion wear. The picture at the top is of their Raffles City branch. (Raffles City operation hours: Sun – Thur: 11am – 9pm; Fri – Sat: 11am – 9.30pm) They have rows upon rows of frocks and frou frou! Such a joy to run your fingers through the soft, satiny, lush, velvety fabrics! Do note however, that their Raffles City and Vertex shops offer a different range of gowns. Raffles City houses sexier styles – e.g. low back, plunging neckline, while Vertex is more conservative eg. Sleeveless, dresses with bolero. Vertex also houses the plus size collection. (Vertex operation hours: Tue – Sun: 12pm – 6pm).

Their Vertex showroom is located just at the city fringe, near Paya Lebar. I initially took a taxi to Vertex but I realised I could’ve easily just taken the MRT and stopped at Tai Seng. It’s just a short 10 minute walk! It’s not difficult to get to and rather accessible.

So today, not only did I get to view their sizable showroom and learn more about what they had to offer, I also got to try on several outfits in one of their two incredibly spacious changing rooms. To be honest, the experience was simply indulgent! I absolutely loved it! So different from my usual style, so terribly FAAABULOUS!

Singapore-based readers, look out for a chance to win a $50 voucher that can be put to use against a purchase or rental!

To enter, all you need to do is
– LIKE the wastedfashion facebook page
– LIKE the Dress Sense Facebook page AND
– Go to the Dress Sense Facebook page and comment on the photo of me that you like best

ALSO, just for wastedfashion readers (regardless of straight or plus-sized), Dress Sense is extending a 10% discount on all purchases and rental of regular-priced gowns/cocktail dresses for the next 12 months until April 2014! Just tell them you would like the “wastedfashion” discount!

Thank you for reading and thanks for the opportunity, Dress Sense!!