Fashion

Thrift Shopping at thredUP IRL Stores

February 6, 2019 By Kat

In recent years, I’ve been hearing more and more about a company called thredUP which started as an online website for people to sell and buy secondhand clothing.

A couple years ago, I tried out Poshmark, which is another website to buy and sell fashion. I tried to sell a bunch of items, but had little luck – I sold one item. While buying things from Poshmark was tempting, I wasn’t sure of the quality of the items from the photos. It seemed like a lot of hassle to deal with an individual seller if I ended up not liking the item.

Meanwhile, I heard about how thredUP started opening up stores – called thredUP IRL (“in real life”). <~ Millennial talk lol. They had a pop up shop in Walnut Creek in the Bay Area, but that’s pretty far from me. Then another one popped up in Los Gatos and I was considering going there. But then one day, I was walking down the street in downtown Burlingame and saw that thredUP IRL had popped up there! I was excited to walk in and check it out.

It was a small store but the merchandise on display was very well done. The outfits they had picked out for the mannequins and on the wall were very cute and made me want the items!

Heart eyes for that black and pink Kate Spade purse!

So you basically browse the store and the racks, and then try stuff on! Everything has a thredUp tag on it with the discounted price. They have a range of brands available – from affordable ones (JCrew, H&M, Ann Taylor) to more designer brands. They have jackets, shirts, dresses, jeans, pants, shoes, and more. This store only had women’s clothing at the time that I went (in October 2018) but you can find the other types of stuff like kids clothing on their website: ThredUp.

I would also say that the quality of the items are pretty good. Many of the items look new or are in very good shape. thredUp is highly selective about what items they accept, which makes it easier for shoppers browsing their inventory.

Clothing is organized by color, type, and size

Once I picked out a couple items, I headed into the dressing room to try them on.

Right away, I loved this maroon faux leather jacket! It looks badass, especially with the quilting detail on the shoulders. It fit perfectly as well – snug!

The best part was that it was only $14.99! Yes! Thrifting for the win!

I didn’t have as much luck with the other items. They didn’t fit as well, so they were meh. I didn’t get them.

So in the end, I decided to take home the maroon jacket. Woohoo, what a deal!

I had a great experience at the thredUp store – the staff is very nice too! There are other discounts as well (see below). If you sign up for their mailing list, they’ll also email you when they have in-store sales.

After your visit, they may send you a survey about the in-store experience where you can also score some free $$ credit to use in the stores!

So the summary is if you’re looking for some trendy items at a lower price point, I highly recommend you check out thredUp online or in-person at their stores! Shopping secondhand is great for the environment as well!

Next up, I’m going to order a kit so I can send in some of the clothing I no longer wear and see if I can get cash/credit for them. Whatever they don’t accept will either get shipped back or you can choose to have them recycle it for you. I’ll let you know how it goes! 😉

Check it out for yourself – get $10 off on thredUp online with my referral code!

Or check out their store locations here. I’ve been to the Burlingame location and the Stoneridege Mall location in Pleasanton (pic below).

Happy shopping!

Trying out Rent the Runway: How did it go?

January 16, 2019 By Kat

For awhile now, I’ve been curious to try out Rent the Runway – an online service where you can rent designer clothing and accessories.

With fast fashion being a problem these days, and our landfills filling up with clothing we no longer want, renting clothes is an attractive idea. It allows us to enjoy the novelty of new clothing, without creating more waste because the clothing will be used again by other people. In particular, it can be worth it to rent special occasions dresses, which we only wear a couple times anyways.

Well it turns out, my friend Wendi had a code for a 1-month free trial, so I happily accepted! Thanks Wendi!! I captured photos along the way and took notes of my thoughts, so here’s my experience with Rent the Runway (RTR).

The Plans

To use RTR, you browse the online shop and select items that you want to rent. They get shipped to you. You wear them. You return them. Oh and they take care of dry cleaning too, which is nice.

You can do a one-time rental for a certain time period. Or there are 2 types of monthly subscription plans offered. More details here.

With the cheaper RTR Update plan, you can have up to 4 items rented at any time, and you’re allowed to swap once a month. A swap means you send back the items you have, and then pick 4 new ones.

With the RTR Unlimited plan, you still can only rent 4 at a time, but you have unlimited swaps. So after you wear the items for a couple days, you can immediately swap them back for new items.

They have free 2-day shipping each way, but it takes a little bit of time to do each swap. My coupon code was for 1 month of RTR Unlimited, so I got to rent as many clothes as I wanted!! Woohoo!

Getting Started

Once I signed up, I started browsing the catalog.

They have lots of cute items and they try to put them in categories like outfits for the weekend, outfits for work, etc.. You can search / sort by the normal filters like tops, pants, dresses or color or other features.

Checking out the catalog for the first time was so much fun. I was like a kid in the candy store. It also took me a lot of time – I think I pretty much looked through the whole catalog LoL. But the best part was that everything was $0!! Hahah because it’s for rent – but seriously, wouldn’t you love to shop when everything’s $0?

They have accessories as well – jewelry and handbags.

Clicking on an item gives you more details. It will show you what sizes are available for renting and whether it runs large/small/true to size. You can also check out photos of real customers wearing that item. That last one is actually pretty helpful!

You can bookmark items you like by tapping the “heart” button next to each item. Then you can view “My Hearts” to see them all together.

Checking Out

Okay the hardest part comes when you must make decisions about which 4 items you want to rent. Ahhh only four!?!?!

I hummed and hawed before deciding on these 4 items for my first shipment!

They also give you some styling ideas on what to wear it with. Cool!

Then it was time to wait for my shipment to arrive. *Eagerly anticipating my new clothes!*

Opinions So Far

At this stage, these were my opinions of the shopping process.

The Good

Renting items can help you plan your outfits ahead of time. At the time, I had a couple special occasions coming up, so I could plan what I was going to wear by picking out a dress for it.
It’s fun to try designer brands that I would not normally splurge on.

Areas for Improvement

There could be more diversity in the types of models they used for the clothing. They seemed to use a lot of lighter skinned models.
Improved styling of the clothing on the models. Sometimes when I’d hover over the item to look at the photo of the model wearing it, I would change my mind about the item. It didn’t look as flattering as the item on its own, which seemed a little counterintuitive. Hmm *shrug*
They could hide the summertime prints or make them harder to find. Scrolling through them, it was the wrong season to be wearing them, so I just skipped over them.
They could have more sunglasses options. They had some designer sunglasses options, but I wasn’t too excited about them.
The engineer in me found a bug in their interface, lol. When you scroll through the user photos of an item and tap to view one of them, it keeps jumping back to the beginning, which makes it very hard to see all the users’ photos. Maybe they’ve fixed this bug by now.

First Shipment Arrives

Ok back to the excitement! Finally a black bag arrived at my doorstep! I was pleasantly surprised that it was eco-friendly packaging – a reusable cloth garment bag that folded in half. The dresses were in plastic garment bags and the purse was in a cloth bag.

The purse was a little smushed though – as you can see, and it still was a little smushed even as I wore it. So I wish they had kept the stuffing inside the purse (when you buy it brand new) so that it would maintain its shape even through the shipping process.

Wearing My New Clothes

Here is dress #1! I wore it to Thanksgiving dinner. You can tell how overdue this post is (it’s now January as I write this lol).

At first I really didn’t like it. It was baggy and looked a little quaint on me. I did some adjusting, unbuttoned some buttons, rolled up the sleeves, added a belt and then it looked a better. You can still tell that it’s a little big on me.

Here’s dress #2! Date night. Sexy one sleeve dress. It’s got a mesh panel across the midsection and back too, and an asymmetrical hem line.

The problem was that it was also too big for me. It could barely zip on the side, but the length was too long and sleeve was too long too (not a big problem, I folded it in). Here are some of the unflattering angles of the dress. It actually looks like a very conservative dress when you see it from the left side of my body. Not quite the look I was going for.

But regardless, I wanted to get some use out of it so I wore it to dinner. I threw my own jacket on top of it, and used the new snakeskin purse as well.

It’s a cute purse! I liked it. It has personality to it. I also wore it out and about for casual stuff like going shopping.

Oh and the sad thing was that the fourth item I had picked (a cape) was not available in stock anymore. (They had emailed me earlier about that.) So I only got 3 items in this shipment.

I ended up picking this skirt instead. It has a whimsical flower design on it. I selected it because I was doing a storytime of my children’s book at the bookstore. It kind of went with the whole artist / illustration vibe – at least in my mind it did! It was stretchy in the waistband, so that fit fine, but the skirt was really long. I thought it would hit my mid-calf or something, but it was longer than that. Without heels, it looks too big for me. Short people problems.

So that wraps up my first 4 items. They were fun to try! I wore the dresses once each, the skirt once, and the purse a couple times. After about a week or so, I returned them in the same black bag. And waited until RTR received them.

Second Shipment

A couple days later, I received the email that it was time to order again! After more endless browsing, I decided on these 4 items.

Here are the cute styling ideas they gave with my selections. Nice!

This time I wasn’t so diligent about taking pictures of everything, lol sorry.

I liked the red dress. It was classy and very holiday-themed. It was December at this point. I wore it with tights for a little holiday get-together. Again though, it was big, so I had to adjust it so it wouldn’t look as baggy on me.

The gray dress was not flattering on me at all. It was very “square” in that there was a somewhat high neckline and the sleeves were long, and the skirt part was long too. So it wasn’t the cute look that I had hoped for. It was sad considering I liked the brand and have another dress from them. I guess it’s hit or miss. I ended up not wearing this out.

The purse and coat were cute! I wore them several times. The coat was a tad big on me, especially the sleeves, so had to roll those in too.

Pics with the purse!

Ok I know this is a really long blog post, but the saga isn’t over yet!

The In-Person Rent the Runway Store

I heard that there was in-person RTR store. They apparently have them in Chicago, SF, NYC, Topanga, and DC. (Where’s Topanga?)

Anyways. I made the trek up to the in-person store in SF. I was curious to see if it’d be easier to find items that fit me in-person. The store is small and near Union Square in downtown.

I returned my current 4 items, using these fancy kiosks. After you scan each item, you drop them in the bins underneath.

I could rent 4 more items, so I browsed around. You can see there are lots of clothes – many of them holiday outfits (because it was mid December at that point), accessories, and handbags.

To be honest, I spent a while looking, but I had a hard time even finding things to try on. I didn’t have any fancy holiday parties to go to, so maybe that ruled out a lot of the dresses. I looked for more separate items (tops / bottoms). Many times, unfortunately they didn’t have my size – my numeric size or an XS. I did find some items to try on – but even after I tried them on, they weren’t too interesting. I browsed the purses and handbags too, didn’t see anything I absolutely loved. So ultimately, I decided not to rent anything. Sad! :'( I felt like the inventory was better online. Or at least it’s easier to see what’s available in my size.

But if you do get something, these are the kiosks to checkout. Oooh fancy!

Anyhow, it was nearing the end of my trial month, and I didn’t end up having time to browse for new items for a third shipment. So here’s my final verdict.

The Verdict

After some careful thought, I decided not to continue with the RTR subscription. It was such a fun experience though – so much joy and anticipation throughout the process and enjoying the novelty of new clothes, new brands, new purses. As time went on though, I grew a bit tired of the items not fitting like I had hoped for and got tired of having to adjust / fold things in to make it look like it fit.

I know they have a petite section, and I forget if I picked items in there or not, but if I did it again, I would focus on that section of their inventory. I avoided all the long dresses / pants because I knew I’d have a hard time fitting those (4’11” over here).

My feeling is that these designer items are great for the runway and for women who are taller. They did have a range of sizes and even maternity clothes, but somehow the items just didn’t fit me that well. I did have better luck with the accessories that work for all body shapes.

It also does take time to browse through and find items each time. I wanted to make the most of each shipment, so I took a little longer to be sure of the items I selected.

In addition, for the price of $159/mo, I didn’t feel like it was an expense I could afford in my budget. The cheaper plan is $89/mo but same issue.

So in the end, I actually prefer shopping and buying items from stores that I already like, so things fit a lot better. I actually appreciated going back to my regular wardrobe because everything fit me just right.

Fit is no easy task. Finding something online and having it fit is already a hard problem in itself (i.e. as part of the normal online shopping process). It takes a lot of time and patience to find things that fit correctly. Even for the brands/stores I shop at, sizing can vary, and many times something from the same brand won’t look as good.

Note: From looking at the RTR website, they do have additional support to help people with sizing, which I haven’t tried yet.

I have to say though, I think RTR will become increasingly popular as will the idea of renting clothing. My friend who is petite actually really likes RTR, so I think for certain demographics of people, this model will work out quite nicely. Living near an in-person location would be great too. I appreciate that RTR is thinking of the environment as well – in terms of reusing clothing and how they ship the clothing.

As the RTR brand grows, they’re already seeing more popular clothing brands come to them and want to work with them. And that will help boost their value for customers. All in all, they’re definitely a company to keep an eye on. I think they’re quite disruptive in the fashion world!

Well, if you got this far in my post, congrats! That was a novel haha. I tried to be as thorough and fair in my review as possible. This post was not sponsored, so take what you will of it.

If you want to check it out, use this link for $30 off your first order.
Rent the Runway

Transformed by Kat: Michael Shares His Style Journey

December 21, 2018 By Kat

Meet another styling client of mine, Michael Leadon! This is his “before” picture. Hmm those pants…

And here is the “after” picture! Woohoo! A clean modern look for a stylish man.

Michael shares the story of his transformation:

“I went to Kat to try to get some ideas for some new stylish clothes, but I ended up with my own style. Kat will not only gives advice on what to wear, but she will explain the reasons that one piece is better than another so you are now equipped to make stylish choices. After our shopping excursion, she sent me a list of the brands and sizes that worked for me, so I could then go and get similar items from that designer. Another great thing about Kat is that she is also a student of current fashion. She stays abreast of what the current trends are. When I ask her questions, she not only answers with words, but will send links to celebrities wearing the style in question of videos of fashion experts giving their opinion on the topic. ”

Thank you for sharing your experience, Michael! It’s been very rewarding to see your style and knowledge of fashion evolve. You’ve really taken this information and ran with it. Very proud of you!

If you want to discover a new confidence in what you wear and how you shop, send me a message at styledbykatkuan@gmail.com. Let’s chat!

Shoes from Recycled Plastic Bottles: Rothy’s

December 10, 2018 By Kat

The shoes that I see women everywhere wearing are flats from a brand called Rothy’s. They’re very distinctive in how they look.

This brand is based in SF and has re-purposed over 20 million plastic bottles into shoes. It’s incredible! The shoes are created with a 3D knitting machine so they are seamless.

I can vouch that they are by far the most comfortable flats I’ve worn, and are my go-to flats these days.

They have round-toe and pointy-toe styles. They also have loafer and sneaker styles too. I would possibly consider a sneaker style, but I’m very happy with my black pointy-toe flat because it can be dressed up or down with a casual outfit or with a more business casual look. Sometimes I’ll throw this pair of flats in my car trunk if I need to change my shoes when I’m out and about.

If you have wider feet, you could order half a size up. But I find that it runs true to size – I have size 5.5. Some people order 2 different sizes and then just return the other pair. The insole is removable too, so you could replace it with a different shoe insert if you need to.

They have solid colors and also some more funky patterns if you want something more bold. For more ideas on how these shoes look, take a look at their Instagram for style inspiration.

Also, it’s machine washable! More detailed instructions on their FAQ page.

They are more pricey, but I think they’re worth the investment for how often I wear mine. Also, here’s a discount for $20 off your first order. (note this is not a sponsored post, this is just my friends and family referral code that they give all customers.)

There’s free shipping and free returns within 30 days. Or you can return the shoes in-person to your local Happy Returns location (i.e. Stanford mall or Valley Fair mall in the Bay Area). See my previous post on Happy Returns.

They look modern and stylish and they’re comfortable, so I highly recommend a pair for your wardrobe!

Browse Rothy’s Shoes

rothys kat kuan — I’m wearing The Point in Black Solid

Nude Nails

October 4, 2018 By Kat

Having clean and polished nails adds to a positive first impression that you present to the world. It shows that you are detail-oriented and take care of yourself – even in the smallest ways.

But keeping your nails looking great (especially if you paint them) is a high maintenance task. And when work and personal life already keeps us so busy, who has time to worry about something as tiny as nails? While it may appear tiny, it can be one way to make space in our schedule to take care of ourselves. And actually we look at our hands many times a day (if you’re sitting at a computer), so having nice nails can boost your self confidence. So how to achieve this?

Well a trip to the nail salon can be one solution. Manicures can get costly though, and also the gel manicures actually weaken my real nails (they start chipping a lot), so I’ve taken a break from those.

Today, I wanted to share a tip that I learned from Kim Kardashian. The nail polish she uses often is this nude colored one from OPI – in the color Samoan Sand. It is pretty neutral, so people can’t really tell if it’s starting to chip a little. Whereas if you were wearing a bold, bright color, you would easily be able to tell if it starts to chip. So in that sense, this nude color nail polish is a little easier to maintain than other colors. And I think it looks pretty classy and will match any outfit!

She also files her nails herself too, so I picked up a nail file and started doing that as well! It makes the nail shape look smoother instead of having jagged edges from the nail clipper.

Anyhow, I’m still working on a regular routine for my nails, but this color is really starting to grow on me, so I’ll definitely be using it more often!

Returns for Online Shopping Made Easier

September 28, 2018 By Kat

The returns process for online shopping is such a headache.

EASY TO BUY, HARD TO RETURN

It’s so easy to get carried away when online shopping though. Sometimes I get so excited about a great deal that I forget to check the shipping costs, and much less, the return policy.

Only after I receive an item I don’t like do I look up the return policy and realize how annoying it will be. For example, for Gilt, it costs $9.99 to return something and get your money back, or it can be free to return something but then you get merchandise credit. I don’t want to buy things I don’t need (just to spend my credit), so I opted for paying for the return.

Getting the item mailed is another hassle: print the return label, pack it up, and then drop it off at a FedEx or post office location. Also, when I tried to return a pair of shoes in the original big box (which came with more items), the FedEx person told me I would have to fill the box with extra paper so that the items don’t shift around. Or pay them to fill it for me for $5.99. -_-

It’s such a pain to return these items that we may end up keeping things we don’t like, just to avoid the process. Or we avoid online shopping. Or sometimes I only buy from places where I can return to a physical store, but that’s still troublesome.

AN OPPORTUNITY

In any case, my point is that there’s definitely room for improvement in this process. There’s been so much innovation (like Amazon Prime) with getting fast shipping, but now we need something for fast returns.

HAPPY RETURNS

This isn’t the silver bullet, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out about a service called Happy Returns.

They only work with limited brands, the ones I recognize are Everlane and Rothy’s, but here’s the process:

You buy something online from a place like Everlane. The nearest store location to me is all the way in SF, and I do not want to drive to SF just to return a shirt. Instead, you can just bring it to a Happy Returns location, several locations in the South Bay – including Stanford Shopping mall and Westfield Valley Fair mall (a lot more accessible and easier to park at).

You go to the Guest Services desk and they’ll scan it and process the return for you. I even forgot my receipt, but they found the transaction. The service was a lot quicker and more pain-free than I expected.

To see if there’s a Happy Returns location near you, you can search here. And these are the supported brands.

Anyhow, I hope they open up more Happy Returns locations and that they also have more retail partners that they support!

Outfit to Transition into Fall

September 20, 2018 By Kat

As the Summer winds down and we fall into Fall, it’s time to bring out the sweaters and booties! I wore this casual and comfortable outfit to the mall on a weekend. And nothing like McDonald’s to bring a beaming smile to my face!

Here’s a rundown of the details of this outfit:

Sweater from BCBG. I think I got this from the outlet last year.
White t-shirt. I got this from a small clothing store in downtown San Carlos awhile back. The brand is some asian label I don’t even know how to read, but any white t-shirt could work.
Gold Necklace from BaubleBar. Well it’s not real gold, but you get the idea.
Denim shorts from Aritzia. I like the raw hem detail and the pockets that peek out from under the shorts. They make my legs look even longer, ha!
Paul Green booties from Nordstrom. They’re comfortable and breathable. Even with the heel, I can walk in these for awhile!

What are you excited to wear for Fall?