What’s Your Fitcode?

Nowadays, given the simplicity of online shopping, updating your wardrobe can be done in seconds. With the flick of a mouse and the click of a button, you can own an entire new ensemble from shiny Maui Jim sunglasses to knee-high black leather boots. Gone are the days of spending hours stuck inside an overcrowded and understaffed clothing store digging through racks of garments for the right size. With bunny slippers on your feet and no foundation on your face, you can now spend the day shopping to your heart’s desire, stress-free.

Well, mostly stress-free. While online shopping offers easy access to products all over the country, ascertaining the proper size can be a nightmare, especially when it comes to jeans. Unlike the simplicity of a shirt or a new pair of shoes, jeans are often the hardest thing for most women to buy online because there can be a myriad of fit disasters. Jeans can be too baggy in the butt, too tight in the calves, inches too short or loose at the waist. With innumerable potential problems on the horizon, jeans feel like one garment that can’t be purchased from the comfort of your couch.

The reason? Sizing across brands can vary wildly, and they follow no sensible patterns. JAG Jeans, for example, have sizes that range from 0–16; 7 For All Mankind offers sizes from 23–32. Even worse, once you’ve figured out your approximate size, there’s no guarantee the pants will fit; some brands run excessively large, others run small. With numbers that don’t add up and inconsistent sizing, accidentally ordering the wrong size isn’t a stretch. To avoid these shopping woes, many people avoid ordering jeans online and save that shopping experience for the mall.

While trying things on in a store is a surefire way to get the fit you crave from your denim, it isn’t always a relaxing process. The solution? An online shopping haven that focuses not on a numerical size, but on fit. Based around the idea that every woman’s body is different and thereby flattered by different cuts of cloth, Fitcode provides users with an individualized shopping experience designed to showcase only the jeans that are likely to flatter your body. 

The company is co-founded by Rian Buckley, the current CEO of Fitcode and a former international model. Though Buckley graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in political science, it was her history traveling and working as a model that prompted her to delve into the entrepreneurial world. Says Buckley, "I started Fitcode after spending years in the fashion industry as a model. I noticed the disconnect between real women and the less-than-real product images. I would spend hours on set being clipped, pinned and Photoshopped to look perfect... Then I started hearing clients talk about the high rate of returns they were suffering from unhappy consumers." It’s a relatable problem; so often the flawless fit we see on models fails to match the picture staring back at us in the mirror.

With the products unable to provide a perfect fit for even the models, Buckley knew something needed to change—namely, the consumer obsession with size. "When you go shopping with your friends, you could be the same size, but that doesn’t mean the jeans will fit you in the same way. That’s why Fitcode focuses not on size, but on the fit." The burgeoning company, about two years old, connects real users with real products that should provide the best fit based on body shapes, not size.

User-friendly and quick, Fitcode prompts every new consumer to answer four easy questions about their jean-headaches: your usual size, then the shape of your waist, your booty and your legs. From there, Fitcode curates a list of jeans personally selected to correspond with your body shape, a.k.a. jeans in your "fitcode." The website provides everything consumers need to know about that specific brand of jeans, including how the jeans should fit, the measurements for the product and the suggested size you should order based on the results of the introductory quiz. Some of the products even include a video demonstration of a model in your fitcode wearing the jeans, allowing consumers to see how the jeans look on people with similar body types.

Fitcode goes out of its way to provide a litany of tools for the average shopper to get the perfect pair of jeans on their first try. Explains Buckley, "We want to make online shopping easy and painless... By changing the focus from size to fit and including images and details about each product, Fitcode makes online shopping easier and more successful for women."The focus is clearly on the consumers; featuring a clean website that highlights the products, Fitcode allows its users to browse for new jeans based on fabric, brands, color or even style.

Another way Fitcode improves the online shopping experience is by partnering with high-end jean designers. Their collection includes jeans from companies such as Citizens of Humanity, Paige, Joe’s Jeans, Hudson, 7 For All Mankind, Frame Denim and more. Fitcode has partnered with a number of companies, and they aren’t done yet; in two years they’ve gathered 30,000 active users and approximately $1.85 million in funding to launch their business. Now, Buckley and her team are discussing what’s next on the horizon. "We’re always expanding and growing,"Buckley notes."We really want to stick with women’s denim and master women’s denim right now, but we eventually hope to expand into men’s denim."

One way Fitcode is dominating is through their browser extension Jeanius. Designed to make shopping on other websites effortless and to help customers find the best deals, the Jeanius extension integrates the Fitcode icon onto all supported designer and retailer sites. For example, looking for curvy jeans that will hug your hips like a glove at Nordstrom? Through the Jeanius extension, all jeans made by supported designers in your fitcode will be marked for your convenience. The extension will also provide easy product information and allow you to track your favorite pairs. However the best part of the extension is that it compares prices across all supported sites to help guarantee that you get the best deal in your shopping crusade.

With a thriving business built around the happiness of their consumers, Fitcode removes pain from the online shopping process. Just like trendy tops and beautiful bags, new jeans with a flawless fit are finally just the flick of a mouse and the click of a button away. 

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