Store Review: Select

I decided to take a short break from the Birchbox. Mainly, because I haven't experimented with the other 3 products enough to do full reviews of them yet. Don't worry, they will be coming soon though. In addition, this blog is called XXL Clothing and Beauty and I haven't really had much discussion when it comes to clothes. Hence the introduction of 'Store Review', a new section where different clothes shops in the UK will be reviewed. 

Firstly the basic ground rules:

1. All of these shops will be in the UK. This is because I'm British and I don't have the money to travel the world just yet. 
2. In order to be considered, the shop must stock clothing from a size 16 onwards. Shops that only do a small range of plus sizes (e.g. 16-20) will be reviewed and penalised as such.

Right now the ground rules are out of the way. Time for the review. Select  prides itself on being a high-street women's wear store aimed at 18-35 year old people. They claim to offer quality clothing at an affordable price. They offer clothing from UK sizes 6-20 and you are looking at approximately £35-£40 for a pair of jeans, a nice top and some shoes outside of the traditional winter/summer sales. 

Select's Logo. Picture Credit: Crossgates Shopping Centre

Category 1. Range

When it comes to range, Select is a very unique specimen. They sell pretty much every type of clothing except for underwear. However, as I mentioned in the previous paragraph, their plus size range is only from sizes 16-20 and even then, there isn't really that much available if you are a size 20 compared if you are 16 or 18. 

Therefore I am giving range a 6/10. 

Category 2. Fit. 

So a little bit about me. I'm 5ft 4inch and a size 18-20. This means that jean shopping is pretty much the work of satan. To this day, I've only found 3 places that do decent jeans that actually fit me without making me look a hot mess. Simply Be (if I had the budget to buy all my jeans there, I would. They're just so comfortable), Primark (if I wear the 20) and now Select. 

I recently brought myself the following:

• 1 black jumpsuit
• 1 pair of dungarees
• 1 pair of jean
• 3 tops
• 1 pair of jogging bottoms
• 3 pairs of shoes
• 1 necklace.
• One cap

I brought everything in an 18 with the exception of the following:

• The dungarees which I brought in a 20 because my boobs are big and therefore can potentially be the bane of my existence. 
• The shoes which I brought in an 8 (I'm pretty sure, it's impossible to find women's shoes in a size 18).
• The necklace: Because it was one size fits all, 
• The cap: same as the necklace. 

All the clothing I brought, fitted really well. The jeans gave just the right amount of lift, the dungarees gave me plenty of room around the chest area and the jogging bottoms were lovely and loose. Bare in mind, I brought all of this online which meant I didn't have the option to try it on beforehand. 

Therefore based on this, I am giving fit a 9/10.

Category 3. Price

For the clothing I mentioned about I paid £70.90. This was for essentially 4 outfits plus the ability to mix and match the tops and the bottoms. When one is paying less than £20 for an outfit, that store automatically gets into the higher band of the scoring system.

However, it is important to note two things:

1. All of the mentioned clothes were in the Select summer sale, so I didn't pay full price.
2. I also was lucky enough to find a 20% sale items code.

Without those two things, my total would've been £87.89  or about £23 per outfit. Still, for the quality and fit of all of my clothes, I would quite happily pay £23. 

Therefore I am giving price a solid 8/10 (this goes up to a 9/10 during sale season). 

Final verdict:

When it comes to good value clothing, Select is regarded as one of the best in the UK. The clothing is a very good fit, is a reasonable quality and you can easily buy your whole wardrobe online. However, what lets it down is it's lack of plus sized clothing compared to the likes of Simply Be, Miss Guided and ASOS. This means that all the praise in the world only really applies to anybody size 20 or smaller which is a huge shame especially with the rise of demand when it comes to plus sized clothing. 

However if you are a sized 20 or smaller, I would highly recommend you bookmarking the select website and keeping an eye out for deals such as online codes, student discounts and offers in their newsletters.

Final score: 6+9+8= 23/30

Final percentage: 77% (highly recommended). 

If you have any shops, you would like me to review, feel free to suggest them in the comments. Until next time, have a good day and remember 'YOU ARE AMAZING!' 

Kelly