Joshua Dumas Owens Case Study
This is a case study of one of my clients Joshua Dumas Owens. This case study was made to give prospective clients a complete unadulterated look into what a Virtual Makeover consists of. There’s a whole lot of words to read within the correspondences but I wanted to make this as transparent as possible. Since I know a lot of people aren’t interested in reading a novel I included annotated notes. Let’s begin.
Josh posted on reddit looking for help picking two budget suits and putting together a wardrobe for grad school.
I messaged Josh and recommended Spier & Mackay for his budget suits since at the time they had a special going for $100 off two suits. This meant he would get two high quality suits for $275 each. I also invited Josh to get a Virtual Makeover in exchange for an honest testimonial.
Josh sent me an email and I asked him some preliminary questions.
Josh replied with the answers to my questions and a picture of himself.
I start by recommending a ring if he’s interested in wearing one while giving him some options. I also recommended getting a white and oxford blue button down shirt. I chose Land’s End because of their great collar roll and because you get 40% off one item by signing up with email. I recommended wool trousers from Brooklyn Wolf as well. Look I said I like to be as transparent as possible so full disclosure: going back I would not have recommended these as I’ve now heard of people having issues with this company. This was also before Banana Republic had athletic tapered wool pants. I recommended a light grey wool sweater as well and asked a few more questions and for feedback on my current suggestions.
Josh enjoys the rings I showed him, the second moreso than the first. He also likes the pieces I recommended. He answered my questions and also informed me that he’s trying to move his footwear to driving shoes and loafers.
I recommended the Florsheim Midtown Toe Penny Loafers since they’re awesome for their price point and because you get 10% off if you sign up with email. I also recommended some rust chinos (that, unfortunately, went out of stock before the Virtual Makeover was over.) I suggested a shawl collar cardigan from Banana Republic as well. I end by asking him if he has khaki colored trousers already and if he’s satisfied with the jeans that he has already.
Josh let me know he is looking for two decent quality pairs of pants and that he doesn’t wear jeans often but he has some casual outfits in his mind that would best with jeans.
I recommend Levi 541s to Josh in black and indigo blue. The reason I chose black as well is to introduce sprezzatura (“a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it”) into his wardrobe. His loafers would contrast enough with the black jeans for them to work together even though typically people do not recommend black pants with brown shoes. I recommend him J. Crew for khaki colored chinos because Banana Republic doesn’t have any on sale and J. Crew’s were 30% off. We’ve got some great core items picked out and still have some breathing room in his budget. The best way to move on from here would be with dress shirts so I ask him if he’s comfortable measuring himself. This determines what brand we’re going to use for dress shirts.
Music to my ears 🙂
I recommended a plain white and microcheck white shirt from Charles Tyrwhitt as they were having a sale. I also recommended a chambray shirt to round out his wardrobe. I also suggested a dark blue dress shirt by Uniqlo for night life activities. Banana Republic’s sale was INSANE and their clothing went down another 10% that day. This was a very unusual sale and Josh and I got extremely lucky. $34 for Banana Republic chinos. Absolutely bonkers.
Unfortunately I lost all of the images from the original email except for Josh’s. This is a recreation of Josh’s final Capsule Lookboard.
In closing:
Josh’s original proposed a budget $500 but he figured it wouldn’t be enough so he expanded it to $750. This was great because it gave us a lot of room a smaller budget wouldn’t have. However, knowing his first number was $500 I didn’t want to go top off his budget so we stopped at $645.95 before shipping. It was a pleasure to work with a guy as driven as Josh. As I said above going back I would not have recommended the Brooklyn Wolf wool trousers as I’ve now heard of people having issues with that company but fortunately Josh was sastisfied with them. We were EXTREMELY lucky with deals. Josh was one of my first client, as the manner of convenience for my clients I now get email coupon codes with burner emails and send them myself.
