Tag: clothing

Reviews

A Sock By Any Other Name: Bombas

Posted on by thwiv

I believe it was Lieutenant Daniel Taylor who first said “Two standing orders in this platoon. One, take good care of your feet. Two, try not to do anything stupid, like gettin’ yourself killed.” Wise words.

I’ve bought my shoes on Zappos.com for the past few years. I like it not only for the convenience, but the selection. As a twenty-something, I used to think sneakers were the only shoes I’d need. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve grown in taste. “Oh, chukka boots would be a great addition” is something I’ve said out loud. I probably buy new shoes every 2-3 months, not because I need them, but because it’s easy. I figure if I don’t like them, or they don’t fit, I can just snobbishly hand them to a FedEx driver and Zappos will happily send me another.

However, vanity is a hard vice to overcome. I choose to embrace it, instead.

I bought a pair of shoes through Zappos by the clothing company Ben Sherman early in 2016. Upon putting them on the first day and wearing them for an hour, it occurred to me that Mr. Sherman may have been born with less toes than I currently have (10). As unfortunate as that thought was, I kept on, as I was in an office and no one likes the guy that takes his shoes off at the office. In the next few hours, I’d discovered his ankles must also be a peculiar shape, as the skin on mine was being removed rather quickly. Getting home was a delight that night. I went online to start the return process…

ben_sherman_shoes

As I said: vanity is hard to overcome. These shoes look great. “These shoes will definitely wear in”, I said to myself.

I wore them for about a week before realized that, because those toes are made of hard rubber, there isn’t going to be any “wearing in”. I have to find another solution. “I’ll buy better socks”.

So, it’s about a year later. I, obviously still have Satan’s hooves up there, and I’ve tried a few different brands of socks I found in different parts of Amazon and Zappos. I try not to go for the socks you find in 12 packs at Target: I’m no sock plebe, and they’ve got to make these shoes wearable. I’ve found the problem with buying a nice pair of socks online is that they generally come in 2 sizes, Small, which must be for small children and leprechauns, and Large, which fit shoe sizes US 7-12. My size is US 13, so I generally have to really stretch out a 12 to make it fit. Those shoes up there kill my ankles, which makes that no good.

I found Bombas through a Facebook Ad.

logo

A dream come true. They have a few different options for sock purchases. The best part is their large is for US 9.5-13, which is rather compelling for a guy like me. I purchased a 6 pack of their assorted color ankle socks for $64.80, minus a first time purchasers discount, which put the total slightly under $50. 64,80 makes it over $10 per pair, which is definitely pricey for socks, but Lieutenant Dan has never steered me wrong. I waited a reasonable amount of time for ground shipping, there was a 2 day option but I opted out: I can wait on socks.

So they got here, and the next day I put them on. And for you, dear reader, I put these socks through the ringer, and wore those Ben Sherman’s all day to see how they held up. That’s something I haven’t attempted in months.

The short answer is: those shoes still kill my toes. However my heel still has all it’s skin. Achilles would love these.

The pictures on the website don’t really tell you the whole story about Bombas. They’ve built their socks with an ankle guard: a stuffed back ankle to shield your foot from rubbing shoes. They also have arch support with a beehive design, which feels nice and probably helps out people with flat arches, or shoes that don’t have that support built in. The cotton is high quality and very comfortable to wear. There is even extra toe protection as well, it felt like, but I’m not sure that anything could help those shoes. It was worth the challenge though. The socks fought valiantly, but evil won this day.

I wore the rest of the socks throughout the week in more normal shoes, and was very comfortable. In any reasonable shoes these will be fantastic. I’m very happy with my purchase. The only issue I’m a little worried about is their longevity. I put them through the laundry one time, and the bottoms started fraying a bit.

Fray after one wash
Do you have any idea how hard it is to take a reasonable picture of a used sock?

They are still perfectly wearable and comfortable, and hopefully they will hold up; only time will tell.

Another really great perk about buying from Bombas is, as you can see from the graphic above, they donate a pair of socks to the homeless for every pair of socks you buy. You might not know that for the homeless, socks are a precious commodity: they generally don’t have a way of washing clothes, so socks stay on their feet until they are completely worn out (a couple of weeks, tops), and then hopefully replaced. Obviously socks aren’t going to solve homelessness, but you can at least feel a little better that your purchase is going to a reasonable cause.

I highly recommend Bombas. Take Care Of Your Feet.

 

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Reviews

The Emperor’s New Pants: Addendum Deux

Posted on by thwiv

Man this story just keeps going.

After being offered yet another different set of pants, I just asked for a refund. I’d say I asked politely, but I did say that I had enough of their company’s incompetence, which I think now was pretty rude. I hope the customer service rep didn’t take it personally.

This refund was granted, and I was notified that I would see the refund on my credit card account in the next 10 days. They offered me a discount of some sort on my next order, which I politely declined and sent them a link to this blog, just so they know it’s out there. I don’t plan on ordering again, and furthermore I don’t want to complain for free stuff. I just like writing about these things, and I hope I can provide a service that people enjoy. I actually want to like these products. I’ve got some socks that I’m going to rave about next week.

Alright! It’s over! I can go buy pants somewhere else.

But then today, I get a message from “Grace, Head of Customer Experience at Mott&Bow”. Among the apologies and fluff pieces, they tell me that they shipped the pants last Wednesday. Note that I didn’t get a shipping notification, I didn’t get a message that this happened, I didn’t get anything. I look at my account, and all of my orders are Cancelled. However this email says they will be here on Friday, and there is a FedEx tracking link attached (SmartPost again…great job guys). I wanted a refund, I was granted a refund, and then somehow now I’m getting pants again. Pants are not money. Not in this economy.

Now, in my previous addendum, you may remember they said they were out of these pants. Somehow, they found a pair that same day without telling anyone. Which means, almost certainly, that they took someone else’s order and sent them to me instead, because I complained. So if you’ve come across this post because you’re wondering what happened to those pants you ordered, I’m truly sorry about everything you’re about to go through. If I could ship them directly to you I would. You might as well just do the charge back now.

This company is insufferable. I don’t even want to wear these pants on the off chance they fit well and look nice, because I don’t want anyone asking me where I bought them.

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Reviews

The Emperor’s New Pants: Mott & Bow

Posted on by thwiv

I’m not what you’d call high fashion.

I wouldn’t mind being more fashionable; I have nothing against the concept. But, I lived in a beach town for many years, and wearing a blazer would get you questioned about whose funeral you attended. I knew one guy that bucked tradition and wore suits out, and he pulled it off, but he was definitely the odd man out. I’d rather blend in, just in case I need to make a quick exit. You never know when you need to not be noticed. So, jeans and t-shirts. It always works.

People dress a bit better here in Austin. Sure, it’s nowhere near New York or Western Europe, but there is some sense of hipness and style among the hipsters that does not go unnoticed among the aforementioned jeans and t-shirt guy. I sometimes yearn for that stylistic eye. I want to layer. Hats are a mystery that I’d like to solve.

Not so much that I would actually go to stores and buy clothes, however. There’s way too much that goes into that, and I’m a busy man. I’ve spent many hours walking through malls and finding small shops, just to find a pair of jeans that fit nicely and won’t fall apart. I can’t do it. How do they do it???

I found Mott and Bow (pronounced like the applesauce and the front of a boat, respectively) on one of my daily treks through posts about politics and Thanksgiving. I had been needing new jeans for a while; my fiancé has a simmering hatred for one of my three pairs of jeans that I currently wear, which she mentions every time she notices they’re on. I needed new pants, if only to replace these baggy old ones, and Mott and Bow looked ready to provide.

I felt like searching through their website was easy from a product standpoint. However, for a person that is maybe not as stylistically inclined, differentiating between the products was something of a catch. I can see that the things are slightly different colors, but I can’t really tell why those things have different names. The cuts, I get. I know what a skinny jean is, and I know that as a large man I’d better stay away. I went with the strait leg, which is a style I’ve worn before. I ordered the “Rivington”, because I liked the color. I paid 88 dollars after tax, which is a little expensive, but not the most I’ve ever paid for jeans. I feel like jeans are a thing you should spend more on, because they end up lasting a very long time.

Buying jeans online is a risky venture. You have no idea how the jeans will fit. Luckily enough, though, Mott and Bow offers a “try-on” option, where they will actually ship you 2 pairs of jeans, you try on both, and then return one for free with the sticker provided. That is a superbly cool idea. However, these pants had no sizes close to mine, so the try-on option was a no-go for me. I wanted “Rivington”! I wanted it now!

Shipping took forever. I chose the base shipping, which I found out afterwards is SurePost, meaning UPS ships to USPS and USPS delivers to your door. This ended up taking 16 days to get to me from Order to Received. That is an absurdly long time to wait to try on pants. If I would have known, I would have sprung for the 2 day shipping option, but even so…you’re sending 90-100 dollar products through the mail, Mott and/or Bow, how about we get traditional ground shipping, at least?

And then the worst news. They didn’t fit. They weren’t even close. They made me question my reality: I went and checked the sizes on other pairs of jeans I owned. Yes, I ordered the right size. For those who don’t know, men’s pant sizes are actually measurements, so I’d expect it to at least be close. It was not close. After 16 days of waiting, I had to return them.

The product seemed really solid. I would have liked those jeans. One more thing I noticed on the washing label is that these were something called “Raw Denim”. I had heard that term before, but to me it was shrouded in mystery. I read that I was supposed to hand wash these jeans. And that, my friends, is where I said “Nah”. I’m not hand washing anything, this is what machines are for.

The return process was seemingly easy. I went online, marked that I wanted to return them, and then put the sticker back on the box and dropped it off at UPS. Pretty straight forward. Mott and Bow then sent me an email a few days later, asking for a review, and I gave them the honest truth: They didn’t fit, and I wasn’t going to hand wash jeans, so I’d rather just return them. To my surprise, they replied. The nice people at Mott and Bow said they had another pair of jeans, something called a “Mosco”, that was similar to the “Rivington”, but stretchier so it should fit better, and didn’t need hand washing. I still needed jeans, and this customer service rep had just gone above and beyond. This all happened on December 13, 2016.

So I waited. And waited. Through Christmas, through New Years, I waited for these jeans to be delivered. I checked my account, still pending. I finally followed up with an email 3 weeks later. “We are very sorry, we had an issue with our processing. Your returned jeans have been received, and we should be sending out your new jeans shortly. Please take a 10 dollar credit for your next pair as our apology“. Awesome. I waited. And waited. I emailed again, a week later. No response. Wait a few more days. Today, January 16, 2017, I called. “We don’t see any problem with your account, I’m not sure why they haven’t been sent”. After threatening to do a charge back on my credit card, today they have set my jeans “Ready to ship”. If the timeline sticks, I’ll be trying on a new pair of jeans that I wanted in November sometime in February.

But hey, they gave me a 10 dollar credit on my next pair of jeans. If I order now I might have them in time for shorts weather. Maybe they sell cutoffs.

Mott and Bow has the illusion of great customer service in an online company. They have responsive CSR’s and a great save the sale technique, which should really be admired. But it seems like they have forgotten the biggest thing you can do in customer service is get your product in front of the customer in a timely manner. Without that, none of the other stuff matters. I won’t be ordering again. I wouldn’t suggest anyone else order either.

 

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