Tips for guessing designers?

[dandykins]

Hi all,
So, as my luck would have it, I found my top two dresses in a horrible shop that doesn't divulge names of the designers until after I purchase.

This is just silly, as I have no idea if I'm getting a real designer dress with quality materials or some knockoff. I would like to do some comparison shopping (gasp!) to see if I'm getting a good price.

So... does anyone have tips for figuring out the designer of a gown? This shop has of course removed the designer tags and substituted their own, and they have a cryptic coding system.

Thoughts?
Thanks,
d

[kdrkdrkdr]

Not even the designers? Wow - that is crazy! Usually they have the original designer tag inside they just rip out the model number. I as at a place the other day that just reversed the model name/number. Pretty unimaginative!

[dandykins]

...As detailed in the book, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requires dresses to have a Retailer Number. I was able to get the RN from the tag and plug it into the FTC's directory of RNs at https://rn.ftc.gov/pls/TextileRN/wrnquery$.startup
to find the designer. Sweet!

Now, just have to figure out what design it is...