Ultimate Fashions II — Local services in New York

Throughout my time working with Laura she continually asked for a review, so here we go.

Some background: My fiancé(now husband) and I planned a surprise wedding in a 6 week time span. Ultimate fashions was the first and only shop I had been to at the time of ordering my dress. I had a specific dress in mind and was looking for it to be ordered within time frame, this was my main concern when looking for a shop, so I do take some responsibility for the events that occurred given that I should have looked around and more thoroughly researched. Also, I am an extremely non confrontational person, I will go to extremes to avoid arguments and therefore I overlooked a couple of red flags as they arose to keep the peace.

Bottom line: I would NEVER recommend anyone shop from ultimate fashions. Laura is only out for your money (which many industry professionals have also told me once I started speaking to people after the fact), she only cares about how much money you could give her and where she can cut her own costs. I was lied to and they stole from me by not actually completing the agreed upon alterations and yet taking my money anyway. Also for the record, I paid all costs up front mainly in cash amounting to about $2,100 for this trash service. I am thankful for my dress being delivered in a timely fashion, but honestly for the service I received I should’ve just ordered online and saved myself the trouble.

The good: My dress was ordered and received within a week, Laura was very eager to help (and to tell everyone about how helpful she was), and the staff, specifically Carol, was very sweet.

I had several issues during the process of recovering my dress, one being that Laura was very incessant on me ordering my accessories through her. This was exemplified when Laura ordered two sets of jewelry without my asking and insisted that I needed them. I refused considering I SPECIFICALLY told her that I didn’t want any fancy jewelry. My problems mainly arose during the alterations process. I went in and tried on the dress where the seamstress, Josephine, determined that I needed the waist taken in, a bustle, and for the shoulder accents to be tacked down so they wouldn’t fall off. I also requested that the straps be shortened a bit. About two weeks go by, I come in to try on my dress again, upon arrival I see that the bustle looks extremely off. It was one button in very thin fabric, there were large unflattering folds, and to top it all off it dragged all over the floor with completely defeats the purpose of having a bustle in the first place (see pictures below). I mentioned to the seamstress that it didn’t look right and was too long and she said “no no that’s what it’s supposed to look like”. Even though I was unhappy with the dress I took it home to avoid any confrontation. I tried to convince myself it was fine and that they knew what they were talking about. Later that weekend I tried the dress on again. The bustle was still bothering me a lot and on top of that I could now see that my breasts were completely exposed due to the dress’s fabric being sheer and the cups being way off to the side. This obviously could not fly at my wedding so I proceeded to text Laura and ask if I could come in and speak to Josephine (see photos below). Laura was very unaccommodating and practically unresponsive until I asked for a refund. Long, long story short; I received my refund and ended up bringing my dress to an actual bridal shop to be fixed. I paid less than half of what Laura charged me for DOUBLE the work as the bustle had to be given 5 buttons to actually be held up. This is also where I found out the shoulder accents were NEVER tracked down, and the waist was...

My daughter is having her sweet 16 in June. We went to a reputable place on Long Island and ordered the dress she wanted on March 12. The staff told me that Jovani has had some delays in shipping but that we would have the dress in time. So a few weeks went by and I did not hear any follow up from the store so I called. They told me the dress would be shipped (mind you, it’s coming from overseas) out on April 12. So I called on April 12 to check that it had been shipped, the girl said no that it looked like it would be shipped on April 15. She put me on hold to double check. When she came back to the phone she now advised me that the dress wasn’t being shipped out till April 30. Now the party is June 3 and of course it’s going to need some alterations and since they’ve already delayed the shipping date twice who’s to say when April 30 came, it wouldn’t be delayed again and then we’d have to try to find another dress. Obviously I was very upset and angry, the salesgirl just kept saying it was out of their control. I got off the phone and called my sister crying. She said she was going to go to the Jovani site to see what we could do. In the meantime I called a bunch of places in state and out and everyone kept telling me the same thing, no one had this dress and the ship date wasn’t until July. Now I really started to panic! My sister called me back a couple hours and said she spoke to this wonderful woman Laura at Ultimate Fashions in Staten Island and explained my situation and Laura said to my sister for me to call her and she could help. When I did Laura couldn’t have been more kind and helpful. She immediately got the owner of Jovani, yes the owner, on a conference call with us , explained the situation and Maria the owner GUARANTEED that we would have the dress in plenty of time, probably first week of May. I couldn’t be more relieved. Well fast forward one week later, MY DAUGHTERS DRESS IS IN!!! I am beyond grateful to Laura and Maria from Jovani for making this happen! Laura went above and beyond to help me without any hesitation. She’s an absolute angel who cares about her clients and wants to make them happy. So without a doubt if you want the best in the business go see Laura and her staff at Ultimate Fashions. Thank you Thank you Thank you Laura!! You’re awesome! I’ll send pics from my...

Laura made shopping for my daughter’s sweet 16 dress a beautiful experience. We weren’t even in her store for 10 minutes and once she knew the color my daughter wanted, she pulled the perfect dress out! Fast forward to months later and in need of emergency alterations… I called her in a panic and she managed to calm me down within two minutes, which is not easy to do! She called her seamstress while I was on the phone with her and asked her to come to the store within an hour just for my daughter. We arrived before the seamstress and I was now worrying that the alterations would not work the way we needed them to . Laura took one look at me and said, “We got you!” Lauren, her assistant, was lovely and kept me company while my daughter changed. Maria, the seamstress, arrived a few minutes after us and within minutes showed us how she could do the alterations. With some gentle suggestions and a few extra pins, Maria showed us how she would work her magic and told us we could come next week to get the dress. As my daughter changed out of the dress, I watched Laura interact with several other customers. She is not only enthusiastic, but extremely knowledgeable. Everything she suggested to her customers made each one look like the most beautiful princess. She gives personalized attention to each person-not only suggesting, but also listening, which is THE most important thing. She works WITH you, with the customer’s happiness as her ultimate goal. Hugs...