The Budget Fashionista

One of the most difficult things about shopping online, beside annoying pop up ads asking you to vote for your favorite Destiny’s Child to win a $25 gift certificate to Applebee’s, is the inability to actually try items on before you make the purchase.

Enter My Virtual Model.  Look past the corny sounding name and you’ll find a pretty good idea—a body model that you can customize for your height, shape, ethnicity, hair color, that can be used to “virtually” try on clothing items before making an online purchase. 

So far, only a handful of companies have embraced the concept like LL Bean and Adidas. Strangely, H&M has embraced the concept even though it doesn’t have an ecommerce site. Magazines, like Glamour, are using the models to give readers the opportunity to try on select items mentioned in their pages.

The service does have a few bugs.  For example, according to the program a size 10 APC skirt would look fabulous on my size 16 body, when in reality skirt would really be busting out of the seams. Also, my model looks slightly cross eyed, which in some circles isn’t such a bad thing. Reportedly, the French philosopher Renee Descartes had a thing for cross-eyed chicks. Unfortunately, Sears, who utilizes the service for its ecommerce site, doesn’t ship to France.