Dear Fifteen by Solei — Attraction in West Chicago Township

I am giving 3 stars because there were a few situations we were not satisfied with. We ordered our daughter’s dress several months ago. She loved it and it is beautiful. However, they did not call us to let us know they had it. I called to see if the dress was in and they said they had to call the designer/manufacturer (ArianaVera) to see if they had sent the dress and that they’d call me right back. They did indeed call me right back to let me know they had the dress in their building. That was a very off situation. I did ask the guy how he didn’t know if our dress was there. He just replied with that he had to call to make sure the manufacturer sent it. I just took it for what it was. Second, the dress did need to be taken in but the girl said she really didn’t recommend it be abuse of this or that and we can risk the dress doing funny things once altered which I do think is true. But, it’s just big around torso area and the stiff parts of the dress bend funny due to this. If we pull it the tightest it goes, the skin on her back looks wrinkly. Third, we do question the authenticity of the dress but what can you really do? The dress they had available to ONLY look at in her color, blush (in December) is the one we purchased (but new of course) and I had taken pictures of said (look at only) dress from months ago and there is obvious areas of difference when comparing those pictures to my daughters dress which we just picked up today. Again, supposed to be same exact dress. It is what it is because everyone knows the dresses are all re created in each store and so if you know that going in, how can you complain but it just feels so ick feeling lied to on every level and there’s no way to see if you have a $2000.00 authentic dress either. You have to just trust them you are getting one (which most likely your not). Then, our daughter picked out a bear and all her stuff back in December and upon pick up today, she has no bear with a dress that was supposed to match hers. Actually more devastating than you think. Especially when you see all these bears that are done so pretty for other girls but your “special” bear didn’t get made. They did not do anything besides offer to give us a different bear that did not match our daughter’s dress or to take the bear off entirely (which we did obviously). Now, we are on a Quinceañera bear hunt which by the way, Amazon sells exactly what this store sells, just not as fancy. The color she chose was blush and her stuff (card box, Bible, pillow for crown) came with legit purple flowers. The lady there said this stuff all comes from Mexico and the colors were off. They did offer to fix the few things to the best of their ability and we did still purchase. It was an okay experience but not one that made any of us feel extremely happy or confident in our purchase or decision. The dress is still pretty and our daughter looks so pretty even if it’s not the real thing. I think the cost is what bothers us when referring to the real thing. How can they charge that much $ when there’s no proof of this being the real thing. People like us pay though so it will probably always be a thing. In the end, I can tell my girl was happy and that truly is all that matters. Just know and be okay with these certain things going in; you may not get a authentic dress and you’ll never know, your colors may not match on your package items, some package items may not even be ready or done, and no, altering a dress is something they do say they do but really try to stay away from. The staff is...

We visited Dear Fifteen by Solei in Chicago during a day full of quince dress appointments. At first, the store looked beautiful and upscale, and we were excited to be there. However, the experience quickly became disappointing.

Despite having an appointment, we were left waiting for 40 minutes. This threw off our entire schedule and made us late to our next stop. It seemed they were either overbooked or prioritizing walk-ins ahead of scheduled clients.

One major red flag: the restroom had merchandise on display--including shoes and customer orders labeled with names. That's neither sanitary nor professional. It also made us question whether there are security cameras in the restroom, which would be a serious privacy issue if true.

The biggest concern for us was the communal dressing area. There was no privacy--just one large room behind a curtain where multiple girls were expected to change at the same time. My daughter was very uncomfortable, especially because every time someone entered or exited, the entire dressing area was exposed to the store. At one point, a man peeked in as he passed by. I could tell he was likely part of the staff or a stylist and happened to be gay--but that's irrelevant. He's still a man, and this was a shared dressing space for young girls. That setup is simply not appropriate, regardless of the justification.

With only two mirrors available and several girls trying on dresses, everything felt disorganized and slow, which caused even further delays. What started as a boutique that seemed high-end ended up being the most disappointing experience of the entire day.

The staff was kind, the place was clean and aesthetically beautiful however I wouldn't recommend based on the...

Editing my previous review Although they do have beautiful dresses, the service was horrible. They have you place a review in the beginning so you can get “free” jewelry, not knowing that the rest of the service is going to be awful and so disorganized. When we initially ordered the dress, well in advanced, we had added a bow that was to be made. Our event was June 21st, and they initially called us since January wanting us to pick up the dress. We then asked if we could pick it up in May and they said yes no problem. When we did go for what was supposed to be our dress and jewelry pick up on May16th, they acted like if they had forgotten the dress was supposed to have a bow added on. So that day they pretty much rushed us into picking a fabric for the bow to be made. They told us it would be ready in one week. Which ended up being more like two weeks, making us have to push back our photo session. They also overcharged us on the crinoline, which ended up almost completely ripping around, the night of our event. The bow that was also added to the dress was very poorly made that we had to add safety pins to prevent it from continuously falling off. We also had several issues with the tux rentals. We had chosen a style and an option for rental shoes which they made every one of our chamberlanes rent. They had made it very clear that they needed to pick up the tux’s on the Wednesday before the event, but as we were on our way, they called and said they weren’t ready. With all these issues that we had, the staff was not very respectful and did not take accountability for their mistakes. The only accountability they took was giving us a partial refund for...