Disney's Alice in Wonderland Costume

I'm not shy about the fact that I love Disney. Sure, I don't love everything about it, but there are a lot of good things. For one, I know that I can let my son watch Playhouse Disney without worrying about what he'll see and without commercials about all the latest toys or sugary cereals. And although I'm approaching 30 (only 13 more months!), I still enjoy watching the Disney Channel shows like Wizards of Waverly Place, Hannah Montana, and Jonas. They're just good clean fun and the writers must be awesome because the jokes and comedy on them are so good and multifaceted.

So it shouldn't surprise you that I decided to check out DisneyStore.com when looking for a Halloween costume. The idea of being a Disney princess or other Disney character sounded fun, and since the only other costume I really have is a Hermione Granger costume I put together (and have worn for the last two years), I figured it would be nice to expand my costume collection a little.


When I got to the Disney site, I was excited to find that their Alice in Wonderland costume was on sale half off! Now you have to understand that my son was born on leap year, which means that three out of four years he doesn't have a real birthday, so to speak. So I thought it would be the coolest to celebrate his birthday with a Mad Hatter's Unbirthday Tea Party. I don't think it's actually going to happen because of the cost that such a party would involve and the lack of location to hold it (since it would be around the end of February and beginning of March, we couldn't just have it at the park, which would be ideal). But I'm still fascinated with the idea of the party and so I wanted to be Alice.

So I went ahead and ordered it. Now understand that originally this costume was $80 and from the Disney Store, so I figured that despite being a costume, that it would be fairly well constructed. Well, unfortunately, I was disappointed. The material for the dress was very thin. There was nice detail in the apron, with little teapots sewn in, but it was definitely costume material—not something you could wear every day.

On top of that, rather than there being a sash that you could tie in the back, the sash had Velcro on each end which held it together in back, and then the bow was preformed. This was annoying because it was yet another reason it was very "costume-y" and not a real dress. And it didn't allow you to cinch up the sash to make the dress fit better around the waist.

When the dress first arrived, it was pretty wrinkly since it was all folded up in the packaging, which made the poofy-ness of the dress worse. I checked the tag and it said "Use warm iron if needed. Do not iron decoration." Well, I wasn't sure what "decoration" meant, but I figured it meant the details of the apron. I definitely didn't figure that the dress itself would be a decoration. Well, I might have been wrong because after ironing it, I found that the color of the dress had become burned onto the bottom of my iron. With some scrubbing and scraping, I was able to get most of it off, but using it since has been somewhat difficult since, so I would advise against ironing this dress (yet another reason why it's more costume-y than a real dress. I know, I know. It is a costume, but as I said before, it should be more dress-like despite the fact that it's a costume). The next time I needed to get the wrinkles out, I decided to use the old damp towel in the dryer technique. Sure, it says on there not to dry in the dryer, but I figured as long as it wasn't soaked, it'd be fine and it was. I just put in a damp towel, spritzed the dress with water, and stuck it in the dryer on low for about a half an hour. It worked pretty well at getting the wrinkles out.


All in all, I still liked the dress, but for $80, I would have expected the dress to be more like a dress. I could spend that much at a department store and get a nice dress that I could wear on a night out. So I am disappointed with the construction of this dress. I would have expected more considering the company that made it and the price tag.

Just the Facts

Store: Disney Store
Regular Price: $79.95
Sale Price: $39.95
Date Purchased: October 2009
Rating: 3.4/5

Fit: I just wanted to put  a note about fit. The dress ran a little big. I got a medium, which is what I usually wear (around a size 10) and it was a little big. Also, just to note, the skirt hit my knees. The waist hit in a weird place, in between my chest and my belly button, instead of either rather below my chest (empire waist) or at my waist or below my waist. Because of that, the skirt poofed out right at my stomach, which I felt made me look a little fatter than I normally look. Okay for a costume, I guess, but not very flattering.