how does it compare to other personal shopping services?

March 2, 2022March 3, 2022 Stan

ONLINE styling services are becoming increasingly popular among those who hate in-person clothes shopping or are struggling for inspiration.

Having recently tried out similar services, I’ve reviewed Thread to see how it compares. Read on to find out more.

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What is Thread?

The concept of Thread is one you may be familiar with: it’s a personal styling service, which gives you tailored (get it?) sartorial recommendations based on your personal tastes.

There’s a number of them out there, the most famous perhaps being Stitch Fix (you can read my review of Stitch fix here).

If you’ve heard of Thread, you may have an impression of it as a for-men-only service: it was originally set up as one, with a female-focused side of the service added just last year.

Around 80% of its subscriber base is still male, the CEO and co-founder of the service, Kieran O’Neill, told me (although if you go on the site you wouldn’t know it). In its modern iteration, it’s as tailored as much towards women as it is towards men.

Pros

Social media-esque feed makes service engaging to use
Teaches you how to dress rather than simply recommending clothes
Styling takes factors such as body type and skin tone into account
Impressive selection of brands, as well as interesting house labels
Can buy as much or as little as you want

Cons

Not as much human involvement as other styling services; feels less personal
Delivery takes a while

how does it compare to other personal shopping services?

Thread review: quick summary

I’m sold on Thread. I genuinely think it might be the best shopping destination on the internet.

That’s because, unlike some other styling services, you don’t have to commit to buying a boat load of clothes every single time you want to use it. You can get tailored recommendations, even if you just want to buy a pair of jeans or a t-shirt.

This, alongside the amount of input the shopper gets in the process, avoids one of the main downsides of other services – the fact that large portions of the clothes received end up being returned.

And the level of determination you get when choosing clothes means that you can use the lessons and inspiration Thread has given you to indulge your tastes, however wacky or restrained they might be.

Of course, the amount of user involvement means that it feels a bit more hands-off than other personal styling services; in fact, the amount that actual, human stylists have to do with the garments recommended to you is minimal.

Thread makes up for this with a sophisticated algorithm that learns the more you use the service. Within a couple of days of setting up an account, I felt that the algorithm had my sense of style pretty nailed in.

And, above all, it doesn’t cost more to use than any other online retailer. What is there to lose?

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Thread review: full review

Setting up an account

There’s nothing awfully out of the ordinary when it comes to setting up an account on Thread. You select your gender, then are presented with a number of street style shots and asked to select the ones you like best, so that the service’s algorithm and stylists can form a virtual picture of what it is you want your wardrobe to look like.

Then, there’s the more practical side of the operation: selecting your age and your budget. There are four levels of luxury to choose from, ranked on a spectrum of pound signs, as if you’re browsing for a restaurant on Yelp.

Selecting a single pound sign means you’ll be shown T-shirts that cost less than £15 and jeans that cost less than £30, whereas if you opt for the daunting quartet of pound signs, that signifies that you’re happy to spend £200 on t-shirts and £500 on shoes. If that’s you, power to you.

I’m a big fan of the fact that the next stage asks you to input information including eye colour, hair colour and skin tone. Having a warm skin tone, dark hair and dark eyes means that I’m more suited to colours such as red, amber and earthy greens. I should avoid some other colours (such as sky blue or amethyst) because they wash me out.

This isn’t something a lot of people think about when they’re out shopping (especially men, who for the most part don’t know what colour “amethyst” actually refers to) so it’s good that Thread thinks about it for you.

After that, it’s onto sizing, and this is where you have to set your ego to one side: clicking “long legs” and “very slim” is all well and good until you’re crying in front of the mirror trying to squeeze into a pair of trousers that are too long and too small. In my case, I ruefully clicked “short legs” and “bigger around the middle” and sauntered off to find a salad.

Styling and recommendations

You’ll then be rewarded for your honesty with a few immediate tips on how you can address your sartorial shortcomings. These address everything from body type to skin tone to budget: I was told, for example, to look for thicker materials that won’t cling to my portlier areas.

You’ll also be assigned a stylist (hi, Polly), who is ostensibly tasked with providing you ideas, outfits and inspiration. However, Thread does overstate how involved they actually are with picking out your clothes: there are, in fact, only 10 actual, human stylists working at Thread, working on a client base of around a million people. Rather, recommendations are the result of “half human, half algorithm”, said Kieran.

The algorithm, it must be said, works excellently in keeping you interested. The key difference between the user experience of Thread and Stitch Fix is that Thread takes a more social media-akin approach to styling.

There is a feed, for example, which the algorithm drags you back to in the same way as any successful social media network. You get a notification saying “you have 5 new recommendations” and it prompts an “oh go on then, I’ll have a quick look” sort of reaction.

And whereas Stitch Fix offers a carefully curated personal styling experience that sees you unequivocally recommended garments – which absolutely has its place, especially for more hapless dressers – Thread gently nudges you towards pieces or trends that it thinks might work for you. It’s as much a typical online shopping experience as it is a personal shopping service.

This means that there’s a good deal of scope for indulging your personal style affectations, something I’ve always found difficult with other personal shopping services. Although Thread will give you a framework to work within, you can be as weird, wacky or restrained as you like.

For example, I used the lessons Thread taught me and settled on a striking blue co-ord, which I think other styling services would have thought too out-there to recommend.

One of the great things about the service is that you’re provided with instructions on how to dress well, then allowed out into the world. Teach a man to fish, etc.

It’s also useful that Thread allows you to input items that you already have in your wardrobe, so it can suggest pairings and avoid recommending you things you don’t need.

Thread's in-house brands offer some great office wear — Thread’s in-house brands offer some great office wear

Like Stitch Fix, Thread has a small portfolio of in-house brands, and like Stitch Fix, Thread claims that it doesn’t suggest these brands to customers any more than it does other labels.

Rather, “the algorithm and stylist work entirely based on what’s best for the customer,” Kieran insisted. “The job of that team is just to find gaps in the range to fill with our own stuff.”

Like the responsible reviewer I am, I included a couple of products from Thread’s brands in my purchase: a knit jumper and a smart worker jacket, both from MVP, a very fairly-priced brand that seems designed to help customers build a solid foundation for their wardrobe.

Purchase and delivery

While you can just buy one garment at a time if you feel like it, Thread does encourage new shoppers to bulk buy: customers are offered between £15 and £60 off their purchase, depending how much they spend. If you’re looking to undergo a full wardrobe revamp, then you’ll definitely find this offer useful.

The sheer number of brands available on the site means that garments aren’t held by Thread itself; instead, it has to amass the products you’ve ordered, box them up and send them out.

That means that delivery is slightly slower than you might expect from an online retailer. Mine took eight days in total: I ordered at around 8pm on a Thursday, and received them at the end of the following week. Safe to say, Thread isn’t the service to use if you want the clothes for an event taking place in a couple of days.

The package arrived neatly, and with some surprisingly personal touches. The clothes were wrapped in tissue paper, and alongside them was a nice booklet and a couple of packs of love hearts. Cuties.

I’ve been extremely impressed with the quality of the clothes I’ve received, and the sizing for all the garments was absolutely bang on. I’ve worn the MVP garments frequently for work and to smart casual events (the jacket in particular has garnered some compliments), while my blue co-ord has become a go-to for making a statement at a weekend.

Thread review: the verdict

I can’t think of a reason not to use Thread. There’s no obligation to use it any more than you want to, setting up an account is easy, and once you’ve spent a few days engaging with the algorithm, you’ll find the advice and recommendations an extremely useful shopping tool.

While it’s perhaps not the service you’re looking for if you want an online alternative to a personal stylist, I liked the amount of involvement I had in the process. It allowed me to indulge my sartorial eccentricities while taking on board the algorithm and stylist’s recommendations.

The only reason I can think of not to use Thread is if you’re looking to receive your clothes in the space of a couple of days. But if you’re in no rush, I can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather shop.