A new Vancouver start-up, HelenJean, is challenging that exact ideal by offering tailor-made, custom clothing to fit your exact measurements. It works like this: You pick the dress style that you love from their website. Choose your colour, fabric and “intention” (Sexy? Chic? Successful? Strong?). Enter your real-world measurements and sit back while the tailors do their work over three weeks.
The novel idea was dreamt up by Katie Jeanes, designer of HelenJean, who was tired of going on marathon shopping excursions and coming back nearly empty handed. Not fitting into the mold of what clothing companies assume are everyone’s body type, Jeanes decided to create a line of clothing tailored specifically to each buyer.
“More often than not we let a size define how we feel about ourselves, I wanted to change that thought pattern. Rather than putting a number inside our clothing, each buyer gets to choose an intention and it’s then sewn into the dress discreetly,” says Jeanes. “I thought that if I could make clothes that were custom fit to our bodies, instead of trying to fit our bodies into premade clothes, it may shift the focus from body image and self-esteem to more larger scale issues.”
The dresses cost around $197, which, when you think in terms of tailor-made or wardrobe staples like a LBD, isn’t too much of a stretch. I’m hoping they branch out into more garments — custom jeans anyone? — but do you know what I would literally pay a squillion-dollars for? Custom made boots that finally fit stringy calves.
