End The Broken Cycle. Find Your Dream Wardrobe.

I tried to be modern and young-minded. I signed up for one of the many online styling services. This was mainly as an experiment to find out why no one seems to be buying clothes in stores anymore, and rather focusing on subscriptions. 

So the site was wonderful, easy, clean, bright and everything looked so cute. I selected my favorites. I filled out the body shape questions. I awaited the arrival of my first box!

It arrived on Saturday amidst a number of bills and I felt immediately guilty. What a waste of money, I worried. I opened the box in the same way that a child opens that first gift on Christmas morning. Out came five items. Two were cheap costume jewelry. Pretty little baubles that felt fake. The top and two jackets were cute enough in concept, but the materials didn’t feel right. They felt cheap as well and didn’t fit well on my body because they weren’t properly tailored. 

In the end, I had to send them back. The plastic pre-posted bag wouldn’t hold the entire box, so I had to fiddle with a new shipping label and get the box re-packaged before heading to the Post Office. 

I thought to myself, why couldn’t I just go to my favorite store and try things on and buy them and keep them? I tried to cancel my subscription account, but that required a phone call to the West Coast. I couldn’t reach a customer care person and left a message. Then I had to fill out a survey and got an email saying I was canceled. Then got a second call saying they were trying to cancel me but could not. More wasted time!

If this experience feels familiar, it’s because you’re certainly not alone. While subscription services are great options for some women, for others they just don’t work. You don’t feel like you’re wearing you. That’s because you’re actually wearing clothes that someone else chose for you, not knowing you at all. 

That’s why it feels wrong. That’s why the cycle continues. The cycle of purchasing and returning and canceling. Throwing items in the back of your closet and then buying that trendy piece that you can never really wear and spending way too much money on fluffy floral shirts that only really looked good on the Anthropologie. 

Sometimes you just need a real person’s help. Why shouldn’t you have a wardrobe where you look inside and know exactly what to wear.