Black garter dress - chemise discontinued by DreamGirl - review by She & him

From him: The black garter dress came inside of a simple heavy stock paper shell, with a section of the leg stretched across a white insert to show off the detail of the striations on the product. Not very discreet, but it doesn't have much of a reason to be.

The dress is made of a stretchy nylon/spandex mix, so it'll conform to a lot of shapes. The shuttering of the fabric is just due to cuts or slices made in the overall suit, causing the material to curl up into the little strips you see in the pictures. Because of that, it's somewhat delicate, and I'd keep it well away from items containing Velcro or zippers, as you wouldn't want to damage this suit accidentally. It's machine washable, but because of the delicate nature, hand washing would probably be best.

My first impression is that this item is probably mislabeled as a dress - I'd liken it more to a body stocking than anything else. Because of the way the garters are attached, and the relative inelastic vertical nature of the garters themselves, you need to put your feet down through the torso to get them into the stockings. You begin to run into a problem, however, with the countless number of bars crossing the front and back. You'll need to run your thumbs down along the side seams separating each one as you bunch it up to roll up the leg. This item isn't going to be something you'll easily be able to slip into at a moment's notice. I was pleased to see that it easily accommodated my 6'0 frame, and was in fact quite comfortable to wear. The torso piece was snug, and provided a fun tactile sensation when you ran your hands over the striations on the chest. The texture and pattern it provided was fun to look at and feel.

Make no mistake, this suit is difficult to use. It requires quite a bit of time to get it on properly, even more so if you don't keep it stored in a perfect way where nothing gets twisted. It's easier to get into when you have someone else helping you out. If you use this and stretch it to the maximum, where any particular part of your body is going to stress the material to the point where it is no longer elastic, the fact that the segments are physically cut into the fabric becomes apparent, in that there is no physical reinforcement to them.

From her: The lingerie in our household is, almost without exception, for the use of my partner, as I prefer to see it on him rather than wear it myself. However, in order to increase the use we get out any particular product, I prefer to purchase items which will accommodate both of us. For the purposes of this review, in order to get a sense of what it was like on two very different body types, we both tried the black garter dress out.

I am 4'11", size 12/13, and pretty generously endowed in the chest area (44DD). Once we got it on, I found that the 'one size fits most' tag needed a couple of qualifiers. The more aptly termed body sleeve accommodated my body almost everywhere except for the tops of the garters, which I found did not stretch as much as the rest of the material and thus were uncomfortably tight around my thighs, though ultimately bearable. The ribbing on my legs looked interesting. However, the real issue with this garment for me was the top - although it "fit" just fine, in that my body fit inside of it, because the ribbing on this piece of lingerie is its only feature, and because of the size of my breasts, they simply poked through the holes, while the rest of the fabric gathered above and below them. The effect was a little silly - not particularly un-sexy, but certainly quite different from how the garment is intended to fit. Accordingly, I'd advise any well-endowed individuals, and/or plus-sized persons, to consider that this product is not designed with them in mind.

As for my partner, I thought the garter dress fit him surprisingly well, and I very much enjoyed the tactile experience of running my hands over the striations on the top portion of the dress. However, because of the difficulty of use, I don't see this particular piece becoming one of our favorites. It's fun if you have some extra time to devote to getting ready for a session or an evening together, but if you're thinking of surprising your partner by slipping into something sexy, please note that in the case of this garter dress, the "slipping" will be more of a "struggling."

Sadly, this poor dress slash body stocking sits unused, it is just too difficult to put on properly, and too little payoff when we felt like going through the trouble.