Pop-up shop this weekend

Anyone who fancies looking at some of the socks I highlighted earlier this week (see this post) and who's in the Spitalfields area might want to know it and a few other menswear brands have a pop-up shop from Sunday until Tuesday at 52 Artillery Lane, E1.

As well as Richmond Socks there will be bow ties from Charles Olive, 'preppy; clothes from Coeur (a bit young for this blog's target market frankly), underwear from Hamilton and Hare and various luxury items from Monsieur London.

I'm hoping to pop in on the last day, Tuesday - when, with a bit of luck, they'll be reducing the stock rather than carting it all back. Dream on...

Fashion by body type

Another men's clothing site has launched and this one has a twist - it asks about your build, colouring and body type then makes recommendations based on those parameters. Called Stylepilot it asks for a few basics - are you a V (wide shoulders, narrow waist), an inverted V (broad waist, thin shoulders) what colour is your hair and soforth.

It then makes recommendations from some leading designers - you can get some nice pieces from Gant, Polo Ralph Lauren, many others.

It has one element I'd call a flaw; I put myself in as an inverted 'V' and got entirely slim fit shirts coming out. Now, as Vs go, I'm quite inverted and trust me, some brands are a bit tight. The founder tells me that most people will look better in a 'slim fit' rather than standard fit, which looks like a tent and flatters no-one. I take the point to an extent but I'd still be inclined to look out for stuff that's too fitted (and get back to the gym so I can wear it a bit better).

The site is based on the principle that men don't really know what to wear. Mintel research says that 60% of us don't believe we have a good sense of style while Style Pilot's own research says two thirds of men need help to pick out clothing, while many of us have our clothes laid out by our partners every day. I'd find this a little debilitating, to say nothing of taking my partner for granted, but apparently it happens.

This is basically the same approach taken by a number of sites, but with extra pictures to help you identify body type. I certainly wish them well - I still won't be buying any slim fit shirts for a while.

Discounted tailoring for LifeOver35 readers

OK, back from holiday and I'm in a position to offer a 25% discount on tailoring. It's from Clements and Church and it's easy for you - just enter the promotional code CC76937235 during the checkout process online and they'll lop off twenty five pee in the pound for your first order.

Suits, jackets, ties, cufflinks, less formal stuff like denim and even umbrellas - they've offered this to LifeOver35 readers to celebrate (or market) the launch of their new e-commerce site.

I'm grateful for the offer and would be interested to hear how any readers get on. The offer is open until 14 May.

Declaration: just for clarity - LifeOver35 isn't getting a cut of this, there's literally nothing in this offer for us bar goodwill, we're highlighting it only because readers may be interested.

Genius or idiocy? The Smithfield Case

Just over a week ago I wrote about the Smithfield Box, this idea of ordering clothes from someone who'd choose them for you based on a few sizes and hints on your taste. Was it a good idea or plain crazy? Here's the blog entry and here's the service. As promised I tried it, and here's what I found.

I opted for smart casual clothes, set a budget, put my sizes and a few colour preferences in but deliberately left out the photo. Let's see what they send, I thought.

Signing up was painless. It took them a couple of days to get back to me but then they had to choose the clothes. There were, to be fair, a couple of stinkers - a Boss jacket that was too young on me as well as being too small (they'll replace mis-sized items of course; given that size varies from brand to brand it's no surprise that they allow a bit of leeway and occasionally send something that's large rather than XL as I asked, or XXL just in case). Loads of detailing on the pockets, not my taste at all. A Paul Smith floral shirt was marked XL but also had that appalling slogan "slim fit", and a pair of Paul Smith plimsols - I don't call those trainers - just didn't do anything for me.

Most of the clothes, though, were pretty damned good. I've kept a Polo Ralph Lauren cotton ribbed V-neck and would happily have helped myself to a zip top one as well if I hadn't found it cheaper on the House of Fraser website (Smithfield claims to be convenient, not the cheapest); a pair of brown chinos were not my usual colour but my wife assured me they looked great so they've gone into the wardrobe rather than the returns box, and a paid of Pied a Terre tan Chelsea boots were excellent - no way were they going back, until the tag on the back snapped. Smithfield is of course happy to replace them.

I'm sending a couple of Polo Ralph Lauren shirts back because they were in L rather than XL - it was worth checking - but also because I'm not short of shirts. Had I been in that market then the pink/red stripe shirt and the blue linen they sent would have done very well.

So on balance I'd have to quantify this as a resounding success. Friendly staff - I have a personal shopper called Beatrice on hand anytime I want to order again - no obligation and above all convenience. They delivered free on Saturday morning and collected yesterday evening at no extra charge - they'll simply debit my card with the value of the items I've kept.

I'm going on holiday in a few months' time and depending on what I find needs replacing in my summer wardrobe I'll certainly be in touch with these guys again. Aside from not getting the same discount I found elsewhere - which is absolutely not something they claim to offer - I can't think of a single drawback.

The gift card: a rant

Flickr: Wonderdawg777

Hello, welcome back and I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year. I was lucky enough to get a Fat Face gift card.

Regular readers will know I like Fat Face. Casual clothes, watch some of the patterned excesses if you're my age but good quality, nice design. You get the picture. So I went online to the site and found they had a rather nice pair of black Chelsea Boots (I'd have preferred the brown but they'd sold out, fair enough). Casual, slightly beaten-up looking, really nice for casual wear.

I haven't got them though. And why not? Because like so many other retailers they don't allow you to use gift cards over the Internet when the cards were bought in a shop. This is far from unique to Fat Face. Last year I had a WH Smith gift card (by now a useless shop I'm afraid; when I asked on the week of its release whether they had the Blu-Ray of "The King's Speech" they didn't, whereas every other DVD retailer in the universe had made damned sure they had loads - WH hadn't even stocked it in the first place) and once again, I could only use it in actual premises.

I'm sure there are technical reasons it's difficult to have a preloaded and top-uppable card working online. No doubt someone from IT would be able to explain it to me.

But as a tech journalist since 1989 guess what - I don't care. If you're a High Street retailer you're going to be under threat by now from the online world, and if you have an online presence as well then your gift tokens need to work seamlessly - or else I'm going to start buying my gift tokens elsewhere next year.

A stereotype says men hate shopping. Personally I don't - but I do like a business to accept genuine money when I offer it regardless of the channel. It's now 2012 - retailers, your New Year's resolution needs to be to make buying with you a seamless experience, whether the customer is in front of the computer, on a smartphone or in your shop.