Fit to Be Tried
You know that great Gap sweater you got for Christmas?
Yeah, I got one too.
With mass production, most of the things you own, from clothing to home furnishings, probably are owned by thousands, nay millions, of other people.
Many online merchants, including Lands’ End, Nike and Reflect.com, offer customization services that enable consumers to order products specifically designed for them. Pants, shoes and cosmetics already are available. (For a while, General Mills even customized cereal.)
But in targeting the individual, customization may have less-than-universal appeal. Because personalized products are, well, personal, you can’t necessarily buy them for someone else.
And even buying them for yourself can be difficult online because you can’t feel the fabric or smell the scents to ensure that the product is really to your liking.
It also can be a little embarrassing. I mean, do you really want to publicize your waist size?
Here’s how three customization services stack up:
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Lands’ End. The online apparel seller offers customized chinos for $54. With the service, which launched in October, customers submit their preferred style and measurements to obtain a pair of pants created just for them.
“Let’s say you’re a size 12. Everyone in the country is plopped into the same size 12 ... but you have millions of different bodies that are trying to fit into it,” said Bill Bass, senior vice president of Lands’ End e-commerce and international divisions.
“Technology has now come along and opened up a whole new realm of products that people are going to like better. You don’t have to fit yourself in the standardized item anymore. Size Bill is what I’m buying.”
Lands’ End compares an individual’s measurements with a database of several million human bodies to determine how the person’s weight falls on his or her frame. Those data are used to generate a pattern for the pants, which are cut by a laser-guided machine in a Mexico factory.
The customer receives the pants three to four weeks after ordering. If they don’t fit well, the individual can pull up the original order on www.landsend.com and adjust the fit of a second pair.
“We’re really good on the first pair for most people, but the second pair ends up being perfect,” Bass said.
Of course, the second pair costs another $54.
The pants I ordered were good--much better than I thought they would be, in fact--but not good enough. The waist and length fit well, but the pants were quite a bit baggier in the thighs than I would have liked.
Fortunately, Lands’ End accepts returns for all its products, even customized clothing, which is later sold at its outlet stores.
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Nike iD. This service offers more than a dozen sports shoe models that individuals can personalize with their favorite colors and their names, up to eight letters.
As customers build their shoes, the site, www.nike .com, displays a Flash presentation of the product. The process is simple, quick and actually quite fun. In less than five minutes, I managed to make a pink shoe with a blue spider-web design, a yellow toe and my name on the heel.
And it looked pretty good, if I do say so myself.
“It allows people to have an input in what they wear and how they express themselves,” said Mark Allen, general manager of Nike iD.
Nike sends daily orders to its Asia manufacturing plant, which uses specialized manufacturing lines to produce the shoes. (The site can accept only a limited number of Nike iD orders each day, after which customers are asked to try again later.)
Orders take two to three weeks for delivery.
Nike iD shoes range from $60 to $165, about $10 more on average than the standard versions, Allen said, and include a few styles not available in stores.
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Reflect.com. The retailer offers shampoos, cosmetics, fragrances and other beauty products at www.reflect.com.
To create my “signature fragrance,” I had to answer a series of questions about when and where I would wear it. Then the site asked me to choose from several “soul notes”--images of nature with names such as Ocean Mist, Arctic Energy and Morning Bloom--that would best express the personality of my fragrance.
When I finished, the site described three scents from which I could choose.
Fragrance 1: “Experience spring with newly budding leaves, young blooms and sweet apple blossoms.”
Fragrance 2: “Experience a drop of sweet nectar taken from the morning blossoms of dewy coastal jasmine, bright orange flower and soft freesia.”
Fragrance 3: “Experience a refreshing walk through a glistening waterfall in a northern mountain filled with citrus fruits and crisp apple notes.”
Given the detailed descriptions, I thought the scents already were blended, but Hannelore Schmidt, director of marketing for Reflect.com, assured me that the fragrances were not mixed until I ordered them.
“All of the products are made uniquely for the woman,” she said.
Unable to distinguish between the “sweet apple blossoms” and the “crisp apple notes” without first smelling them, I ordered a $10 sample set of the three fragrances. (A 50-milliliter bottle with a 4-ml purse spray costs $75.)
Shipping on the site is always free. Customers who don’t like a particular product can call the company’s customer service line and ask for a replacement free of charge.
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Christine Frey covers personal technology. She can be reached at christine.frey @latimes.com.
