Did I unknowingly buy a knock off dress?

kvruns

ok this is weird.....hopefully you follow me on this one.

I purchased my dress on preownedweddingdresses.com after learning about that site on the Knot. As luck would have it I found the dress that was my favorite from David's Bridal in my size for a good price and after going back and forth with the seller asking questions I bought it.  Dress fit great, worked perfectly for my wedding a couple of weeks ago, no issues.

So I decided to check preownedweddingdresses.com just to see if my dress was being sold by anyone on there and what it was selling for.  I don't really plan to try to sell it since I'm sure it needs cleaned and since it had alterations, etc. Didn't see it on there but I did a good search for the style # just to see what might pop up. and I found this:

http://www.jjweddinghouse.com/p/aline-david039s-bridal-wg3243-sweetheart-strapless-floor-length-restaurant-wedding-dress_p118508.html

I am pretty sure I'd heard of JJs House as one of those Chinese knock off sites.  This is JJ Wedding House but still basically the same thing I'm guessing. The pictures on this link are the exact ones that I saw on the site where I bought my dress....as in the same girl with the same guy.

So did I buy a knockoff, or did I buy from someone who bought a knock off? Or did they just steal those images and put it on their own site?

BouxRadley

I think a majority of knockoff sites steal the pics so it's more recognizable to those who are looking. That way you automatically assume, "Oh hey! That's the exact same dress at a quarter of the price!"

southernbelle0915

You may have. But the person selling may have just google imaged a picture and copy/pasted it so her ad had a picture of the dress on a model. 

etf reading comprehension: Have you received it yet? Does Did it seem legit or cheap?

kvruns

southernbelle0915 said:

You may have. But the person selling may have just google imaged a picture and copy/pasted it so her ad had a picture of the dress on a model. 

etf reading comprehension: Have you received it yet? Does Did it seem legit or cheap?

I think I thought the fabric seemed a little different but it had been a couple of months since I tried it on so really I wasn't sure. It had also been altered to floor length vs the sweep train (plus being too long) so it looked a little different anyway.

I googled and facebooked the seller's name (I had her name from our correspondence) and her fb pic was the same as the listing picture of the dress.

At the end of the day I was very happy with the dress and of course the price I paid for it but it threw me off.

kvruns

BouxRadley said:

I think a majority of knockoff sites steal the pics so it's more recognizable to those who are looking. That way you automatically assume, "Oh hey! That's the exact same dress at a quarter of the price!"

That's what I wondered too, like maybe they took her pix from the preownedsite.  Although the JJ website lists the dress for the same as the DB retail price

CMGragain

David's Bridal manufactures all of their dresses at their own factories in China, which they supervise.  You cannot buy a new DB dress anywhere but at a DB. 

novella1186

Honestly, I wouldn't worry too much about it. If you have some kind of proof, maybe try to contact the site from which you bought it just in case the seller is scamming people on purpose (like if she shows up again to sell another dress, which doesn't seem likely?) 

What's the price different between JJ's site and how much you paid for your dress? 

Unless you may have been conned out of hundreds or thousands of dollars, it wouldn't even be worth it to pursue any kind of recourse. 

You said you liked your dress and things went well, so it seems like either way it worked out. 

kvruns

Here's a side by side - left is in Davids Bridal, right is right after I got it.  It looks like a different color but that's just from lighting. Length is different because the one I bought had been altered to floor length so the bottom lays differently.

kvruns

novella1186 said:

Honestly, I wouldn't worry too much about it. If you have some kind of proof, maybe try to contact the site from which you bought it just in case the seller is scamming people on purpose (like if she shows up again to sell another dress, which doesn't seem likely?) 

What's the price different between JJ's site and how much you paid for your dress? 

Unless you may have been conned out of hundreds or thousands of dollars, it wouldn't even be worth it to pursue any kind of recourse. 

You said you liked your dress and things went well, so it seems like either way it worked out. 

Pure curiosity here, that's all.  If it was a knock off then it was a darn good one and it worked out perfectly for me.  I have no plans to contact the seller or anything just surprised me when I saw the listing with the pictures I'd seen before so it got my investigative wheels turning.

BouxRadley

I personally don't see a difference. And it looks great on you!

novella1186

BouxRadley said:

I personally don't see a difference. And it looks great on you!

Ditto this. Sometimes the color/fabric of the sample is a tiny bit different only because it's been tried on a billion times and "broken in." Like the lace on my sample dress was super soft and comfy; the lace on my actual dress was stiff and itchy. 

I don't think you got ripped off and as Boux said, it looks great on you

Maggie0829

If that was a knock off then that is the best knock off I have ever seen.  Looks exactly the same to me.

ThxSugar

I ran into almost the same thing, though I haven't bought the dress. Just as I was searching for a certain dress it popped up on preownedweddingdress.com and jjhouse, with the same pictures. Since I already knew jjhouse is a knock off site, I contacted the seller at preowned and let her know that, if they were her pictures, they were being used elsewhere. So I think jjhouse is a serial photo stealer.

OliveOilsMom

I think jjhouse just steals any photos of people wearing the dress.  It is probably easier to keep a specific dress/style on their website using a rando person's photo instead of the companies official photo of the dress on a model.  A specific company could potentially go after the website for using copyrighted images.

I might be inclined to contact who you purchased the dress from so that she knows her photo was stolen and being used by a knock off website.  Just tell her what you told us, you were looking to see if anyone else was selling this dress since you thought about re-selling it and found her pictures being used on the jjhouse website.

photokitty

Maggie0829 said:

If that was a knock off then that is the best knock off I have ever seen.  Looks exactly the same to me.

Ditto this...and you look fabulous in it! 

JoanE2012

Maggie0829 said:

If that was a knock off then that is the best knock off I have ever seen.  Looks exactly the same to me.

Agree, even the ruching/folds are identical.  I'm pretty sure you got the real deal.