Having received this physical Yixuan cosplay costume, I was left completely speechless. Looking at the official character concept art, the white collar design was sharp and neat—especially the gold shield-shaped frog closure embedded with two pearls in the center. Its structure is obvious at a glance: a simple, symmetrical design connected horizontally by a black strip in the middle. When crafted, it should spread out horizontally like a small bow, fully bringing out that elite aura.
But reality taught me a lesson. When I received the first mass-production batch from Vector's shop, I immediately noticed that the frog closure was completely crooked. At the time, I thought perhaps the stitching hadn't been pulled taut during shipping or that it got crushed and deformed in transit, assuming it was an isolated QC issue. So I immediately reached out to the merchant for a fix; their attitude was quite good, and they agreed to alter it for me.
However, after a long wait, when I received the second sample, I was totally dumbfounded. The physical piece was still completely wrong—they didn't understand where the problem lay at all. The two metal pieces were neither on the same horizontal line nor evenly spaced. The horizontal black leather connecting strap lacked any symmetrical tension, hanging loosely and limply, and even the pearls had a slight height discrepancy. As a result, the collar looked like a haphazard ornament, completely devoid of the crisp, orderly precision of the original design.
Later, when I was casually browsing RED (Xiaohongshu) and looking through photos shared by others, I realized I wasn't just unlucky to receive a defective piece. In photos posted by major bloggers, the collar closure was inverted on every single one. It is evident that the factory misread the original art during pattern drafting, completely neglecting the symmetry between the metal pieces and the central axis, which turned the entire mass-production batch into a total Cosplay costume fail.
To be completely honest, the foundation of this garment isn't bad. The scalloped trim around the white collar and the embroidery of blue roses and green leaves below the neckline feature fairly neat stitching without noticeable crooked lines or skipped stitches. The black coat section also features laser-cut patterns and textured three-dimensional reliefs. Looking at these details alone, it should have been a relatively high-quality cosplay costume. Instead, it was ruined by this core decorative element at the collar, which is truly regrettable.
From a technical perspective, fixing this isn't even difficult. All that is needed is redefining the placement points for the metal pieces on the pattern sheet, precisely fixing the opening positions on a horizontal axis, and strictly controlling the length of the black leather strap. Perhaps the factory considered small accessories secondary and cut corners, but in cosplay costuming, what creators fear most is errors in these supposedly minor details.
I tried it on myself; putting on the coat and collar as intended, the shifted center of gravity of the closure caused the entire white collar to lopsidedly tilt to one side. It looked extremely awkward when worn, stripping away most of the character's aloof demeanor and even resembling a cheap street-market knockoff. Snapping a few casual photos on my phone, I felt like crying without tears.
Although this decorative piece has a structural flaw, I think manually readjusting its position—such as securing it slightly with blind stitches—might visually mitigate part of the asymmetry. As someone who frequently wears an Anime convention outfit for cosplay, encountering a scenario where an entire mass-produced run has defective patterning is truly exhausting. Still, now that I have the costume, I can only brainstorm ways to make the photos look great before heading to the convention. I hope any friends who bought the same version keep an eye out for this flaw.