Personal Shopper is Amazon’s version of Stitch Fix, designed to make shopping easier (in my opinion, dangerously thoughtless), but also to collect your data and generate recurring revenue outside of fickle trend fluctuations.
Personal Shopper costs $5 a month, and from a curated selection of pieces you can select eight to be shipped to you to try on at home free of charge. In the Amazon app, there is a style quiz to build your Style Profile — a selection of style categories, which you can identify as wearing Rarely, Sometimes or Often. They include every kind of signifier of humanity: Casual, Edgy, Classic, Romantic, Sporty, Glam, Minimal, Boho, Androgynous and Retro.
Next, you select patterns and colors that you dislike. Above little textured color swatches is a notice: “AVOID THESE COLORS.” I give all patterns a thumbs down (a balloony red graphic pops up: a negative-expressing boxing glove), except plaid and tie-dye.
Next, the quiz presents a series of fashion concepts and asks me to select Not me, Maybe or Love it, like Ruffles (Not me) and Utilitarian (Love it). An optional section is Body Shape, which isn’t so much about size as proportions, where sections of the torso are Larger, Narrow and Straight. My nail lunula have more varied curves than these digital illustrations.
Finally, I rank body parts from Hide to Highlight (arms, chest, legs) and give my numerical sizes. Lastly, I play a little Amazon Tinder and give thumbs up or thumbs down to a sparkly plum Nicole Miller dress, Jones New York beige trousers and black Calvin Klein track pants.
By Katherine Bernard
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