I'm not so chique

One of my favorite Portuguese words is chique (rhymes with sneaky). Fashionable, fancy, cool, stylish. This is not me.
I live in Brazil, and Brazilians are chique. They wear 6" heels to church or a birthday party at the bowling alley. They rock their fashionable maxi dresses, mini dresses, and everything in between.

I, on the other hand, usually dress like this:

At the park

In a crystal shop in Crystalina

At the Jaguar Sanctuary





At William's birthday party

No, I don't usually dress like that. I ALWAYS dress like that.

It's easy to notice several things from these pictures:

A) I accessorize by carrying my son. Who needs handbags? I have children!

B) I really rock those t-shirts.

C) I'm wearing the same pair of capris in three of the four pictures. 

D) In the last one, I'm wearing a pair of cargo capris. How did they make it to this side of 1999?

I love what I wear. I love being comfortable, and when I feel comfortable I am happy. 

But sometimes, now that I'm a grown up, I get invited to brunches. Or my husband brings me to a work shindig. Or I host a playgroup for the children of expat diplomats and company executives. And then suddenly there's no right way to answer, "Well, what t-shirt would go best?"

But here's my problem: I hate shopping. Always have. I don't know what to buy. I can think of a million better ways to spend my time than traipsing through the mall trying on clothes. I can think of a few things I've bought online and been happy with, but I can also think of the rest of the things I've received that hadn't fit, hadn't looked good, or hadn't been the quality I was hoping for. But unfortunately, we're still expected to wear clothes.

So I read about Stitch Fix on my friend's blog. It's an online shopping service. She wrote about it last year, and it piqued my interest, but not enough to do anything about it. Then she wrote about it just last week, and I couldn't stop thinking about it.

What is Stitch Fix? It's a (genius) company where you have a personal stylist who chooses 5 things (clothes and accessories) for you to try, based on your sizing and preferences you provide for them. It costs $20 for the "styling fee," and if you decide to keep any of the items, that $20 goes towards the cost of the item(s). If you decide to return anything, you put it in the postage pre-paid bag provided for you and ship it right back. If you decide to keep nothing, you pay the $20 styling fee and move on with your life.

You can sign up for every two weeks, month, two months, or just schedule a "fix" one at a time. It's not like one of those CD companies that used to send you a bunch of CDs you didn't like and then make you buy more every month until you finally begged them to stop. Stitch Fix can be as often or as seldom as you want. I like that.

I love that you have someone choosing clothes for you. It's not totally random, either. They use computers and algorithms to help you get things that you like, based on your preferences and body type. One of the people working at Stitch Fix headquarters worked for Netflix to develop their preference selection system. Netflix's recommendations have been pretty good in my experience, and they have hardly any data to work from. Stitch Fix uses the data of what you buy or return, PLUS all the data of what you tell them in their rather extensive profile questionnaire.

With each item your stylist sends you, they include a card with a couple of outfit ideas for how to wear the item. This is gold. I'm very interested in those. I don't know how to accessorize. I don't know how to pair a shirt with jeans and then dress it up with a skirt. I don't know any of this stuff, so these will be like textbooks for me! (And like shopping lists, if the card ideas include anything but t-shirts and ill-fitting capris.)

I've been reading about Stitch Fix online, both positive and negative reviews. And to be fair, it IS pretty expensive, especially to me. I'm one of those people that hates spending more than $5 on a shirt. I shop at thrift stores and the sales at Target. But I'm trying to take my clothes up a notch, and I'm thinking of this as a good investment. I'd rather have a few nice items that I know I like, I know fit well, and that have someone else's approval that they are muito chique. And to have someone else do all the legwork? Well, you can't put a price tag on that.

So, I've scheduled my first "fix." It should be coming later this month. But since I live overseas and will have to wait for the mail to arrive, it might be more like July. I can hardly wait!

Stitch Fix isn't like scriptures or vaccines. I don't recommend it for everyone. But I've decided to try it out, and I invite you to join me and watch as I attempt a journey to chique.
And should you decide to try Stitch Fix for yourself, here is my shameless request that you use my referral link. Because then I get credit-- which is apparently a good thing.