Review: Dupe Leggings

Aliexpress is pretty well known for doing dupe Black Milk leggings. If you want to have a look at some of the best ones on there, check out this Gems post. As with most Gems posts, we can't account for the quality of each product. But I have gotten my hands on two pairs of leggings, so I can give an overview of what to expect from these lower quality, cheap knockoffs.


I bought these excellent nautical tights, and my friend bought these skyline ones. We're both happy with the look of them. Hers are slightly more pixelated than mine, but it's because the image is a lot denser and more detailed, so it matters less. I was really impressed, actually, at the crispness of mine! They're very nice!




The reason I have my friend's tights in my possession is I refused to let her wear them until I fixed the crotch for her. I got my leggings before her and after only a day of wearing them, there was a hole in the crotch! She wore hers for about an hour after receiving them and they also were starting to come apart at the seam, so I think it's a problem the majority of these types of tights will have.

Crotch hole alert!

You can see where the stitching has come undone.

If you buy a pair of these leggings, I highly recommend reinforcing the crotch before wearing them. It only takes a couple of lines of stitching on the sewing machine. Since it's a very stretchy fabric, you'll want to use a zigzag, or preferably an overlock stitch, like the one my grandma's sewing machine can do (see photo below). Go further than the problem area, just for extra reinforcement.


The weak crotch problem wasn't an issue for me, because I'm an avid sewer, and it really is the only flaw I've had so far. I love my tights and I'm really glad I didn't buy the originals, because I will certainly not get $100 worth of use out of them. I only have, like, one top I can wear these with, they don't go with very much! Once I fixed the crotch (how many times can I write 'crotch' in one post...), they were totally worth over the $7 (USD) I paid for them.

Also, note that neither of us bought Free size. A lot of these leggings only come in one size, which might seem reasonable because they're very stretchy, but it's best to look for variations that have multiple sizes.

Ratings

Beige Nautical Tights
Product Quality: 3/5
Accuracy of Description: 5/5
Similarity to Original: 3/5 (the brown is slightly more purple, the images bigger and the fabric is cheaper. But pretty good still.)

NYC Skyline Tights
Product Quality: 3/5
Accuracy of Description: 5/5
Similarity to Original: 3/5 (the image is much more pixelated and the fabric is cheaper, but also still pretty good.)

UPDATE 3/8/14: Prone to shrinking dramatically in the washing machine!