It’s no secret that trying to wriggle into a tube dress can be a bit of a nightmare at times. We aren’t straight up and down after all.

But shoppers’ recent experiences of a particular Pretty Little Thing dress have taken things to a whole new level – with the item in question only just about fitting over one leg, never mind a whole body.

Meg Howells posted pictures of her dress on Twitter, asking the retailer: “Is this a joke?”

The fashion marketing and management student at Cardiff Metropolitan University posted a screenshot of the dress as modelled on Pretty Little Thing, alongside photos showing how the dress fit when it arrived.

Talk about expectation versus reality. 

The 20-year-old said the dress “could barely fit over my thigh”, adding “that’s not fitting anybody”. 

And it seems Meg isn’t the only customer who has had dress issues. Another Twitter user Aaisha tweeted the brand in January with a similar query to Meg.

“Am I a fucking caterpillar?” she wrote, explaining the size 8 dress only fit over one leg. She posted a picture of the dress alongside an Evian bottle to show the true width of the dress. “We (your customers) aren’t extraterrestrial mate. We’re human,” she said.

Lots of shoppers tweeted in response to Meg’s post to show they also had issues with this dress. “I had the exact same problem,” wrote one user, while another commented: “Literally had the same problem ordered a size 8 in this dress and couldn’t even get it past my head.” Other customers commented to say their dresses fit them fine. 

The black “midaxi” dress – that’s in between a midi and maxi dress, btw – is 95% polyester 5% elastane and described by the retailer as “figure hugging”. 

Pretty Little Thing appears to be aware of the issue, replying to individual customers asking them to get in touch with their order numbers to sort the issue. 

HuffPost UK has contacted Pretty Little Thing for comment.