e-Commerce Customer Advisor: Does My Bum Look Big In This?

On telly, Trinny and Susannah are a couple of cruel-to-be-kind school prefects, prodding and bullying their semi-willing fashion victims to accept certain fashion verities, such as:

• The 70s and/or 80s are over
  
• You're looking at 41, so stop dressing like 21
• Tatty is not the same as fashionably distressed
• Black is not the only colour
• Magic knickers can transform your body shape

Now watching someone being ritualistically humiliated is all part of the schadenfreude that is the joy of Reality TV. But in the privacy of your own PC, who would be masochistic enough to want to be jibbed and criticised?

Well the designers of Trinny and Susannah's Body Shape Calculator, which has been created to support the online store of Littlewoods Direct, understood this, and have taken a slightly softer approach.



Which is good … but what about The Men? Well, at last, we victims of being banished to the basement or the top floor have an opportunity to dress à la mode.

Being a fine figure of a man, let me share with you the experience … Step one, pop in those vital statistics. Remember, if you lie at this point, you're only lying to yourself. So here's mine.



Somewhat prescriptively, you have to have to admit to being either big, short or skinny. Whatever happened to hunky? Anyhow, so let's pretend I'm "big" then.

"Ask" Trinny and Susannah's advice brings up a set of outfits, classified by casual, smart and formal, with a set of style tips.



Apparently I should wear my top buttons undone to create a slimming vee-neck, and having a jacket with big pockets will divert attention from my hypothetical big tum. While puffa jackets are a huge no-no.

What you are meant to do, after browsing around and poking about the various bits of advice, some of which is the same and some of which differs per outfit, is select some of the items offered to have a look at them. So I selected some trousers.



Now my selection was a bit random, as I couldn't really see the trousers very clearly in the thumbnails offered. And as you can see, when looking at the trousers all together, you still cannot really see them especially well either.

But the most surprising thing is the sudden appearance of the "go to basket" button. Whooooaaaaa! Steady on! I was just having some fun with Trinny and Susannah, trying out stuff and getting some tips and suddenly I'm being asked to buy stuff!? This is not what Jared Spool called a Seducible Moment.

I don't know

• if this is available in my size
• if this is available in my colour
  (I'm autumn colours, apparently)
  
• how this will go with other things
• what brand is it
• what material is it made of
  
• even that most basic of purchasing questions: how much does it cost!
• or most basic of all, what does it really look like, aside from a small 4cm high (on my screen) single angle photo
  

So I'm really not disposed to put any of these things into any thing that implies a commitment to buy. Now as it happens, the "basket" gives me an opportunity to answer some of these questions.



Though you'll notice that the price still isn't shown, until you select your waist, inside leg and colour.

You'll also notice that the basket includes no images at all now. So which trouser detail is which?

You can, one-by-one, click on the enlarge button, which pops up a new window, which is 7½cm high (just less than half the screen height) … hardly eye-popping in your face.

So you're chief guide is a set of terse descriptions, such as "Brushed cotton twill trouser with plain bottoms" and "Bedford cord western style pants with zip-fastening".

Oh yes, Bedford cord … I think we all know what that is, er?

So, what started off as a playful piece of fun, and a rather nice attending to men's fashion needs (so often neglected to a poor second place), suddenly became a jarring sales experience, in which I was being asked to commit to buying things I didn't properly understand. Which is a shame.

Maybe I should try Gok Wan instead…