LIZ JONES FASHION THERAPY

A new website promises to be your virtual stylist - and always get your size right - but I say… nothing beats real shopping!

A decade ago, I went to a fashion conference in Paris. Glenda Bailey, then editor of U.S. Marie Claire and now editor of Harper’s Bazaar, gave a lecture.
She had lots of whizzy slide shows to demonstrate that, one day, women would buy their clothes online, even click on an internet page of a magazine and voila!
We heckled, we laughed. Bah! It will never, ever happen. But it did, of course, and buying clothes and accessories online is the fastest growing sector in the marketplace.

Just not me: How Liz would look in outfits suggested by the dressipi.co.uk - none of which Liz would choose to put on her shopping list

It’s easy and almost instantaneous. We can shop late at night or at work. We can browse through thousands of clothes when, on the real High Street, we would have long since given up.
So shopping online can work. But there is one huge drawback: often, the clothes arrive and they are not quite right. They don’t fit, are too long or the colour is not quite what we expected.

This is where online retailers, even super-sophisticated ones, lose money — in the numerous returns. They lose loyalty, too. And often the shopper loses out, as a not-quite-right garment languishes in the wardrobe (I was too lazy to return a too-long Alberta Ferretti wool cocktail dress).
To address this problem, there are websites that offer styling advice. Fairly new is Stylistpick, launched by Juliet Warkentin, former Marie Claire editor.
You answer a quiz, choosing which outfits and celebrities most appeal — and get your verdict (I am elegant, classic, sophisticated). The fashion editors then create a showroom, which takes seconds.