I bought both pieces here myself. Not sponsored.
Most of the brands I write about, I choose by design, price and size.
Pinni’s Dressing Room is the first one I chose because of how the clothes are made. That sounds like marketing copy, and I resented it slightly when I noticed it about myself, so let me show you what changed my mind.
The headband
| Brand | Pinni’s Dressing Room (피니의 드레스룸) |
| Item | Classic velvet headband |
| Colour chosen | Black velvet (also available in white bouclé) |
| Price | ₩55,000 |
| Construction | Hand-sewn |
| Fabric | Top-grade velvet from a Japanese velvet house — above their standard line |
| Band | Domestically produced, elasticated core |
The unboxing, which I don’t normally write about
The box was heavier than it had any right to be for a single headband. I genuinely wondered whether a second delivery had been combined with it.
It hadn’t. It was just packed properly — to the point where opening it felt slightly wasteful.
Inside, alongside the headband, there was a pouch in a fabric soft enough that I’ve since repurposed it as a ballet shoe bag. And a letter: what the fabric is, where it came from, and how to look after it.
That letter is the thing this whole post is about, and I’ll come back to it.
The velvet, honestly
My worry before ordering was practical: velvet attracts dust, and velvet marks. A black velvet headband sounded like a magnet for lint and a candidate for permanent creasing.
That worry was misplaced.
The pile is dense and it recovers. It hasn’t picked up marks, and dust that lands on it lifts off. The touch is the thing product photos can’t do — it’s genuinely lovely to handle, and there’s a weight to it that cheap velvet doesn’t have.
Wearing it: placed on gently, it doesn’t press behind the ears. That’s the failure point of every headband I’ve owned — an hour in and there’s a sore line behind each ear. This one I could wear all day.
I bought it intending to wear it over ballet clothes on the way to class. It’s too nice for that, which is an annoying problem to have and one I’m solving by considering a second.
The coat I waited a year for
I’d bought from Pinni’s before: the Little Diana coat, in white, the previous September.
The full story, because it’s the reason I trust the brand:
White coats are almost impossible to get right. If the colour is right the design is dated; if the design is good the white is either yellowish or a cold, sickly white. I’d been looking, unsuccessfully, for a long time.
I found this one through another blogger’s post — in 2023 or 2024, I genuinely can’t remember which — and it was already sold out.
So I waited. I told myself I’d find something else, spent one whole winter with no coat at all, and was resigned to a second when I saw on the brand’s Instagram that a small restock, a few per size, was coming.
While I was waiting I ended up following the making of their other pieces — and that was the part that got me. Watching a garment being made became something I looked forward to in an otherwise flat stretch of life.
When it arrived, the box again had a letter: how to care for the coat, what the fabric is, and how the fabric was chosen. Spare buttons included.
The colour was exactly the warm snow-white I’d been imagining for a year. My partner said he’d never seen a coat like it, which I have decided to record here permanently.
What you’re actually paying for
₩55,000 for a headband is not a small amount, and I want to be straight about where it goes:
- Hand-sewn construction, not machine-run
- A higher grade of velvet than the brand’s own standard line
- Packaging you’ll keep — the pouch is genuinely useful
- The letter — provenance and care, written rather than printed on a tag
If you buy accessories purely on function, this is expensive and you should buy something cheaper. It’s a headband.
If part of what you enjoy about ballet is the small ceremony of it — good fabric, things made carefully, an object you’re pleased to own — then this is priced about right and I’d buy it again.
Buying from overseas
Pinni’s sells through their own website, not a Naver Smart Store — which puts them in the easier tier for international buyers. Stock is the real constraint: pieces are made in small runs and sell out, and restocks are announced on Instagram rather than the site.
📌 Follow the Instagram, not the shop. That’s how the restock reached me and it’s the only reliable signal.
I’ve written a full guide to getting Korean ballet wear out of Korea — linked below.
One caution
Everything I love about this brand is also its risk. Small runs, hand construction, restocks announced without notice. If you need a specific item on a specific date, this is the wrong brand.
If you’re willing to wait a year, it’s the right one. I know, because I did.
Does anyone else buy clothes based on the maker rather than the piece? Leave a comment — I’d like to know whether this is a normal thing to have happened to me.
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