Where’s Rachel Zoe when you need her?
Apparently, she has influence all over the net. For those of us that can’t afford a personal stylist (probably most), there is a new trend of personal stylist—the Internet.
There are three main websites that offer this service. Rent The Runway, a website that allows you to rent dresses for about 1/5 of the cost that always has personal stylist on hand—and for free.
Coincidentally, a stylist named Rachel (stylist only give their first names) conducted a chat session with me about a dress I was considering.
Rachel:
“I would love to help you with this!”
Rachel:
“All of his dresses (Herve Leger) compliment a women body, I personally think. The material helps to keep a form fitted body and because it is not a light material it does not show off everything.”
This session went on for about 20 minutes–or basically as long as a customer likes.
There are also two websites that are strictly stylist–Go Try It On and Fashism, both coincidentally founded by Harvard Business school graduates.
I decided to try it myself, using the same outfit for both sites.
On the sites, users take a photograph of themselves in the outfit they are considering. The users then include details about what they are wearing and most importantly for the stylist to consider—what type of event the “client” is attending.
The outfit my stylists helped me put together for a casual day.
Other users then go to work and comment on the outfit and provide suggestions.
While I found Fashism more mean–I mean blunt, all three sites provided great suggestions as to what to add, take off, and took it seriously.
It’s addicting, as I found myself constantly refreshing my page to see if I should “change it” or “wear it”.
At the end (a couple of hours waiting time) I held my breath and got e-mailed the verdict of my stylists online.
“Our stylists say wear it”.