A personal stylist I can afford

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For a few euros a month, Stitch Fix will provide an online stylist who will make sure your outfit is always chic and on point.

A while ago, the legendary rapper Ice-T made the following insightful observation of the current state of gangsta rap: »I’m just disillusioned with the hip-hop sound right now. It’s too materialistic«, he raged, adding: »I can’t do that ... you’ll never see a picture of me with any girl that wasn’t mine, or my own car. My jewellery, my clothes. What kind of gangsta rapper has a stylist? A stylist?!«

Photo: Whereslugo/Unsplash

Ice-T might be right to criticise musicians from the ghetto who always depended on their street for their looks. But most of us average people could really use a stylist.

Ever find that you have nothing to wear to work, to a date, or a sophisticated cultural event? Do you ever feel like your closet is full of clothes that don’t really go together? Do you simply dislike shopping for clothes? Are you repulsed by the mere thought of a crowded shopping centre, where shelves and hangers are buckling under the weight of the sea of clothes and styles? Perhaps it is time to get a stylist, even if it’s an online one.

Haven’t found your own fashion style yet? Stitch Fix will help you get there, and the costs of styling will be deducted from the price of the clothes you buy.

Stitch Fix is a service that introduces its subscribers to the world of fashion. Your personal stylist, aided by artificial intelligence algorithms, will advise you on what to wear, for 20 dollars »a month«. 

Stitch Fix's subscription model is very flexible: Users pick their own subscription interval. You can »buy« a bundle of advice every two weeks, every month, or every three months. The subscription fee is always the same - 20 dollars per selected interval.

Photo: Stitch Fix

The money will buy you fashion advice, the fruits of which will be waiting for you in just a few days, in a shipment of clothes selected just for you. You have three days to try everything on and decide which clothes to purchase. Then you can choose to return as many items as you wish, and buy the rest – Stitch Fix will deduct the price of the pre-paid style advice from the price of your purchase. If you decide to buy the entire shipment, you’ll get an additional 25 percent off.

That is how simple it is to go hand-in-hand with fashion trends, and take a step closer to developing your personal fashion style. Stitch Fix’s stylist will follow your wishes, preferences, and of course, a price range for the clothes, which can all be set in 10 to 15 minutes – that is how long creating a profile should take, according to the company – no matter if the clothes are for a man, woman, or child.

Stitch Fix’s enviable results, along with the trust of its users, clearly tell us that the world of fashion is ready for a subscription-based business model.  

Stitch Fix’s services are currently only available on the American market, where the company boasts 2.9 million loyal subscribers, but an expansion to the British market is planned for 2019. Sales in the financial year that ended September 2018, grew by 26 percent to 1.2 billion dollars, while their net profits grew to around 45 million dollars. 

These results are proof that the world of fashion is ready for a subscription model, an important part of which is smart algorithms. This was additionally confirmed by investors, who propelled the value of Stitch Fix’s shares into the sky – its value reached three times what it was worth when the company was first listed.

Photo: Marcos Amaral/Unsplash

Three months later, the situation was pretty different. Despite encouraging results from the first quarter of the financial year, when Stitch Fix generated over 366 million dollars in profit, the value of their shares fell by nearly half compared to its autumn peak. The reason? The number of new subscribers was growing too slowly. 

However, Stitch Fix most likely remains unconcerned. They care less about growth and more about subscriber satisfaction. And if one happy user, Rob, who is cited on their website, is to be believed, the latter is undoubtedly a priority: »Why do I like Stitch Fix? It requires no effort from me. I look good, which makes my wife happy and I don’t have to shop, which makes me happy. It’s a win-win.« 

This concept is the key advantage of the subscription economy.