Stitch Fix (Fail!)

Ok so I know I haven’t written anything in over 2 years, but we will just gloss right over that.

There have been a few changes in my life – the biggest is my change in jobs. I still have my coffee shop, but my dad is running it. Just this past January, I became an elementary school librarian. I will be writing about this in detail later, but today my main focus will be my experience with Stitch Fix.

For those of you who are not familiar, Stitch Fix is a personal styling service online. You go to their website, put in your information about your sizes, styles, budget, etc and they send you out a box with 5 pieces that are based on the info you provided. You can even link your Pinterest to them so they can go through and get a sense of what your style is.  Sounds good right? Yes, in theory. At least for me.

With my new job, I’ve had to add to my wardrobe. Most of the clothes I had were jeans and t-shirts that I wore to the coffee shop and dresses that I accumulated to wear to special events. Neither were appropriate for the business casual dress code I need to adhere to. So before I started work, I frantically flew through some of our local stores and tried to put some outfits together. I mostly picked casual dresses and skirts that I could wear with tights and boots because a. It was winter and b. That was the easiest thing for me to throw together with limited time. I did pretty ok on my own and ended up getting a few pieces that I liked and wore often.

Fast forward to now. I have 3 weeks until I have to go back to work, it is summer and I don’t have a lot of clothes that will work for the warmer months. I kept seeing and hearing people talk about Stitch Fix and I was curious. I went on to their website, filled out their style & size questionnaires and then put in my price point. Which by the way is CHEAP! I don’t like to pay a lot for clothes, especially on my salary. So I clicked the “as cheap as possible” option. This service costs $20 per “fix” and if you keep any of the items, they will apply that $20 to it. I figured I would keep at least one item so the risk was minimal. You keep and pay for what you want and you send whatever you don’t want within 3 days.

After I was done, they told me my box would be there about a week later. To me, that was a pretty good time frame and I was excited to see what they would send. Also, there is a place to put a note to your stylist so you can tell them what you are looking for specifically and give them a better sense of what you need. I filled my note out and told the stylist what my job was and that I was looking for dresses with pockets (my obsession) that would be work appropriate and that I needed a pair of mint green jeans in my life. I linked my Pinterest board named “My Style” with outfits and pieces that I was either looking for or just really liked. I was confident that my stylist would get a sense of what I wanted and my box would be filled with things I would love.

Wrong. I was so wrong. When the box came, I opened it right away and the first thing I saw was mint green jeans. I was excited! Thats where it ended. I then pulled out 2 tank tops, 1 dress and a necklace. I guess I should’ve been more specific about the fact that I didn’t really want accessories.  Anyway, the 2 tank tops they sent were $44 a piece!!! They were ok in style, but definitely something I could pick up at my local TJMaxx or Marshalls. Or even JCPenney for a fraction of that cost. So then came the dress. It was ok and it fit pretty good, but it wasn’t appropriate for work! It was a long maxi dress that had short sleeves and a surplice neckline that was lower. If I put a tank top under I guess it would have been ok, but not for $78!! So my only hope left was the jeans. I tried them on. They fit and by fit I mean that they went over my hips and buttoned. But they were super skinny jeans with a lot of stretch & thinner material so again, not appropriate for work!! Oh and did I mention that they were $88? I’m not even going to add the exclamation point….I believe its implied.

Now, they do tell you that if you love everything in your box and want to keep it all, they will give you a 25% discount. My box totaled $282 so that means if I kept it, the cost would be about $211. For 5 items. That I can’t wear to work. Which was the purpose of trying them out in the first place. So basically I just wasted $20 and about an hour of my time. I considered keeping at least one item so I could put my $20 toward it and I would at least come out of it with something, but I didn’t like any of it enough to spend any more money.

So I sent everything back and did what I’ve always done…..shopped for myself. I went to ModCloth, ThredUp, The Limited & NewYork and Company and was able to find:

5 Shirts, 3 Skirts, 5 Dresses, 9 Pairs of Pants, 2 purses, 2 pairs of boots, 1 belt and 1 pair of shorts for less than what the 5 pieces of clothing from Stitch Fix originally cost. Now, I will preface this by saying that I got some fantastic deals, used promo codes and shopped the clearance racks online. None of the stuff has arrived yet so I can’t comment on the fit or quality but I will do a follow up post. I’m sure some of the stuff will have to be returned or exchanged, but to me it is worth it if I come out of it with almost a full wardrobe I can wear to work and on the weekends. I wish I would have taken pictures of my Stitch Fix so I could give a visual reference, but I wasn’t thinking before I sent it back. But I will take pictures of my “haul” just in case anyone wants to give advice on different pieces that would go together or suggestions of other pieces that might work.

I’m also linking my Pinterest “My Style” page in case anyone wants to take a look. I will be getting ready to go back to work so my next posts will be about library centers, organization, etc. Or pretty much anything I want to yap about at the time. My Style Pinterest Board