Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Suppurate System Haul + Review



Recently I placed my first shopping service order with Japonica Market, a shopping service I had not heard of until about a month ago. My order comprised of mostly items from Suppurate System's Japanese webshop and a few h.naoto items.

Suppurate System makes very unique jewelry and accessories with a dark, gothic theme. The shapes and colors are all gorgeous and I've ordered from Suppurate System a couple of times before.

There are two disappointing things about their items;
a) the quality varies wildly from item to item
b) the wait time for items to ship

My contact at Japonica Market was extremely prompt with their responses. I actually tacked the Suppurate System order onto an existing order I had placed for some h.naoto items, which they took into stride.

The basic timeline for my order was:

Oct 12 2:03pm = I add the Suppurate System items to my order with Japonica.
Oct 12 6:50pm = Japonica sends me the invoice for my deposit.
Oct 12 7:02pm = I remit payment for the deposit via paypal.
Oct 12 9:57pm = Japonica sends me a confirmation that they have ORDERED the items.

After this point about a week and a half has passed. They have long since received my h.naoto items.

Oct 30 2:04pm = I ask them about the status of my order.
Oct 30 7:40pm = Japonica apologizes for the delay, but the items still have not arrived. They promise me that they will email Suppurate System to find out.
Nov 9 4:43pm = They get back to me with Suppurate System's response that it will take roughly 3-5 weeks because the items are handmade.

Nov 24 9:16pm = It has been 43 DAYS since my order was placed. More than a month. I email Japonica for a status update. I don't mind the wait as much now that I have an (extremely) rough estimate.
Nov 23 9:54pm = They ask Suppurate System one more time where my order is.
Nov 28 9:21pm = Japonica gets back to me. My items have arrived!

So all in all from the day they placed the order it has taken 47 days.

Most of the items I ordered were from older collections that have been available for quite some time. If you compare a lot of these items to their original product images on the website you'll notice that in many cases different materials were used.

A good example is the Master Key Fruit Necklace. The key used is actually different from the original photo, not by much, but it's definitely not the same. Furthermore the apple looks like a pretty generic and unaltered fake apple. In the photos the apple appears more distressed and the chain used is also different. The chain I received was of a kind of cheap, light plastic rather than the heavy metal ones you see in the product photos.





Suppurate System has a lot of cage necklaces, one of which I've owned for a while. I decided to get another because I like them so much. The Malignant Rose Cage Necklace a great example of a beautiful idea that's been horribly executed. The preserved rose in the cage looks crushed and sad and the silver base it's attached to honestly looks a bit like tinfoil. The hot glue used to attach the rose to the bottom of the cage looks sloppily applied. In some places the paint on the cage is already flaking off. It also came on a chain and in the product photos it hangs from a cord.







My favorite thing from this haul is the Satan Poison Bottle Necklace. It seems to be the most well-crafted and orignal piece, also the most true to its stock photos.







The Fruits Nails Necklace necklace is pretty much exactly how it appears on the Suppurate System website. The only thing I happen to dislike about it is the quality of the key, which is pretty clearly made of plastic rather than metal.



The Ruin Virtue Rose Choker was also a little disappointing, but only because I honestly wasn't expecting the roses to be so small. This item also seems like something I could have made at home. Once again the materials used to make this appear to be slightly different than in the original photos (the chains, roses themselves, etc).





This review came out sounding a lot more negative than it probably should have. I still love Suppurate System, but I've come to terms with the fact that in many areas what you see is not necessarily what you get.

♥ le petit alice