Take the pain out of shopping for jeans
Ithink I saw the future of shopping last week, and it could mean that one day soonish, mass market chains and the sorry-we-missed you online delivery system will be just a bad memory.
I came across this futuristic slice through Donna Ida, the London-based Aussie jeans-queen who used to dispense much trusted advice from her London boutiques. Her careful edit and forthright opinions took the pain out of what is most women’s idea of retail hell.
I mean that gruesome trek round the stores for jeans. It’s not just the allencompassing gloom that descends after failing to fit into all nine “guaranteed winners” suggested by the sales assistant – assuming you found a sales assistant – but that you’re now going to have to zip/
unbutton yourself in and out of another nine, providing you can summon the physical and mental energy. Ida’s small boutiques eradicated all that, but the problem was that you had to get to them. So, as more of us barely have time to do anything more than work, Ida decided to close her stores and focus on her internet business.
That’s fine as far as it goes, but you still have to know exactly what you’re looking for, unless you’re prepared to order four or five styles in different sizes. Even then, you may not hit the jackpot. Then there are the returns.
What was missing was the personal touch. Wouldn’t things be infinitely improved, she decided, if you could click a few buttons and have an actual person arrive with your choices, plus a few you didn’t select, because it’s always good to be nudged out of your default setting? Even better if they can offer you some friendly advice, pin them up for you and take all the rejects away with them?
She’s now teamed up with Harper Concierge, a small company that does all of the above. One of the big bonuses of Harper’s service, apart from the fact that it takes all the slog out of denim browsing, is that you can try everything on with pieces you already own and get a second opinion from your stylist. Not sure the high-waists the stylist has brought will work with your existing blouses or jacket? Head to your wardrobe to find out. I tried out the service and ended up ordering a pair of extremely flattering high waisted flares in soft denim I’d never have picked out had I been left to my own devices.
Harper Concierge stylists can stay with you for 40 minutes for a £10 fee (some brands, such as Mother of Pearl, Mary Katrantzou and Amanda Wakeley, also offer the Harper service free). I worry it’s too cheap for them to be able to scale up – at the moment they only operate in Greater London – but they insist they’ve done the maths and that the brands are paying for the service. If this is the future of shopping, it’s a huge improvement.