I travel quite a bit for work, so I have a wardrobe mostly geared towards work. What’s left over are generally for lounging around or doing chores around the house. I don’t get to shop much, so during the COVID-19 “break” from travelling, I found myself without nice clothes that weren’t for work. So after hearing my family talk about my clothes, we decided I should try updating my wardrobe. I did a bit of research, and with my wife doing Stitch fix, I figured I would try something I was more familiar with, something that I had seen before from others in my field. Research led me to Trunk Club. I heard of Trunk Club back in 2014, when a co-worker from Chicago raved about the boxes that he received and the great stylist that he went in to visit. So, I opted to try Trunk Club to update my style a bit.
Setting it up
Fast forward to 2020, and Trunk Club is now owned by Nordstrom. There are some differences to my experience from those of my coworker, primarily, that my initial meeting is not in person getting my measurements taken. But rather, I signed up on their website.
Getting going with Trunk Club was rather easy. I signed up on their website, which took me through a style quiz as a part of creating the account, I guess to get me in a shopping mood. By this time, my family was assisting me in answering the questions, like they were selecting my style. But, once I signed up for an account, I was given several style options for my first trunk. Each time a trunk is ordered, you can change the style options to suite how you’d like to expand your wardrobe. Style options are:
· Weekend Wear
· Work Wear
· Season essentials (in this case, Summer Essentials)
· Active Wear
· Sustainable Wear
After much deliberation with my family, we landed on Weekend Wear for my first trunk. I setup the first trunk to arrive just before Father’s Day, probably so that I could talk them into getting me something from the trunk (maybe reverse psychology and making it easy on them?). Using the mobile app, I had updated information on the shipping status of my trunk and what it contained. I didn’t have to wait until it showed up to know what I was getting.
The first trunk
Once it arrived, as per any shopping outing with my girls, I tried on everything that was sent and validated the matches that they stylist recommended along the way. The box contained nine items, which were a mixture of shirts, pants and shoes. I was supposed to receive a belt in an earlier version of the trunk, but it didn’t ship. A plus for Trunk Club is that the manifest in the mobile app was up to date with what was shipped. However, the paper copy in the trunk showed that I received 10 items. I also liked the fact that the items were individually wrapped, since I guess I thought they should be brand new. But I thought, “Once I open the plastic to try these on, I can’t get the plastic closed again.” After trying on everything and doing a mini fashion show, I looked at the prices. I noticed that everything was on sale in the mobile app (representing up to date pricing), and the original price was on the paper invoice included in the box. I guess if the prices, count and other things change at the last minute, it may not be necessary to include that paper invoice in the box, as any differences could be a distraction to the product.
I landed on items that I liked, and a Father’s Day gift from my family. Returns were easy, as I put everything back that I was returning as neatly as I could (I tried to get them back into the plastic they came in). There is a return shipping label included in the box for returns and to enable free shipping. But they give several options for shipping: drop off at a UPS location, schedule a UPS pickup, or drop off at a Nordstrom store. Being stuck in the house for a few months and not visiting any store outside of Costco and Publix, I decided to venture to Nordstrom and dropped it off at the closest customer service desk to the exit.
Closing Thoughts
In all, it was a great experience that I will definitely try again. I’ll get another weekend style box and try to also improve my business wear for the eventuality that I return to an office setting.
If you liked Trunk Club, tell me about your experience. We’ll also add a review of Stitch Fix in the near future. Let us know what other subscription boxes we should look into in the comments below.