Fail-Safe Shopping

Finding Your Go-To Brands


Once you’ve nailed down your style persona and you’ve figured out what colors and cuts look the best on you, it makes sense to begin to look for those stores and brands that you know you can count on to reliably fit you well.

As we know, not every brand of jean is cut the same way, not every blouse fits exactly the same, not every sweater has just the right length in the sleeve. Depending on each brand’s fit model, the cut of the garment and the size of the garment will be different. The trick is to find those brands that you know are cut for your size and shape.

For instance, I know that pretty much anything from Ann Taylor in a petite size XS will fit me. Whereas anything from The Gap/Old Navy will be comically long. I’ve learned to save myself the frustration of fitting a square peg in a round hole and I simply avoid shopping those stores where the clothes rarely fit unless I plan on taking inches off the legs or sleeves. Which is always an option, by the way…if the quality of the garment affords it. However, it is much more satisfying to me to know that I have located certain brands that will require minimal tailoring, if at all. The best garments for tailoring are those that already cut for your shape and just need some tweaking to be perfect.

While it might be discouraging at first, do spend some time trying on a bunch of different clothes from a bunch of different designers. Take as a starting place the labels of your anchor pieces. You know you love these clothes already…now see if the cut/size is true for all their garments. Perhaps you will find out that the pants with this label are perfect while the tops from the same label do not work for you at all. Great! Now you know!

Once you know that a brand works for you, request a catalog from the company, if they offer one. Or locate their store online. Catalogs (whether print or online) can give you a visual when you are beginning to plan what you need to buy this season. They can also offer inspiration for putting together outfits. Many times you can get discount codes or advance notices of sales if your are on the email list.

Must you stick with the labels and stores that are your fail-safes? Absolutely not! But knowing your go-to shops can save you a lot of time and frustration. Once you’ve got a solid list of sure-thing brands it can be fun to investigate new stores and new designers. Just always keep in mind the few key pieces that you are looking for. And stop when you feel overwhelmed by choices or too tempted to buy what you don’t need.

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