I had an interesting experience at the Birmingham store of the UK clothing brand River Island on Saturday and thought I’d share and see what people think.
Compared to other stores where you simply walk into a changing room and try on your desired clothes, River Island has recently introduced “smart” changing rooms which pick up on what you’ve bought in and give you the option to have alternative sizes bought straight to you or suggest alternatives that you may also wish to try on. Interesting technology, bit more information on it can be found here if anyone’s interested to learn more - https://www.rfidjournal.com/news/fittin ... id/202513/
So back on Saturday, after a walk round the store, I picked up this dress and headed up to the men’s changing rooms to try it on (https://www.riverisland.com/p/red-tarta ... ess-930616), along with a trench coat that caught my eye in the men’s section.
Dress was a perfect fit and thought it looked good in me. Via the screen in the changing room, thought I’d request that a couple of “suggested” dresses be bought over to try on to. After a couple of minutes, one of the male members of staff knocked the door and said that it wouldn’t be possible for them to be bought over as they’re considered women’s wear!
Shortly afterwards, a female member of staff then knocked on the door and asked me to request the items again, which I did.
Waited about 5 minutes and nothing arrived. Unfortunately thereafter due to time constraints (had a train home to catch), I didn’t have the opportunity to wait longer.
Didn’t end up buying anything in the end, while the dress I tried on fit and looked good, got a bit put off by the price (£66) and not being able to figure out a good colour coat to match it with.
Quite tempted to contact River Islands customer service from a feedback perspective and see if there’s anything I should do in the future to make use of their “smart” fitting rooms. Sounds like their expectation was that only women would be trying on dresses in the women’s changing rooms!
Kieran’s River Island Fitting Room Experience
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Barleymower
- Member Extraordinaire
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- Joined: Thu Jun 09, 2022 10:28 pm
Re: Kieran’s River Island Fitting Room Experience
Kieran, absolutely contact River Island customer service. It is appalling behaviour. All we have to do is imagine what would happen if a lady was refused a men's shirt.
Re: Kieran’s River Island Fitting Room Experience
Absolutely Barleymower, to me it comes down to just treating everyone the same, regardless of what they wish to wear.
I've just submitted the following message via the "Contact Us" form on their website, shall see what they come back with. Supposed to take up to 48 hours for a response.
"Hi
On Sunday 2nd November I visited your Birmingham Bullring store right as it opened at 11:00am.
I’m a man who likes to incorporate skirts and dresses into my wardrobe so after a walk around the store, I picked up a Red tartan collared mini dress in my size and headed up to the men’s changing rooms to try it on, along with a coat that caught my eye on the men’s section.
While the dress was a perfect fit (albeit haven’t quite got the hang of doing up zips on the back!), I thought I’d request a couple of the suggested dresses to be bought over to try on via the screen in the changing room. After a couple of minutes, one of the male members of staff knocked the door and said that it wouldn’t be possible for the them to be bought over as they’re considered women’s wear.
Shortly afterwards, a female member of staff knocked on the door and asked me to request the items again, which I did. I waited about 5 minutes and nothing arrived. Unfortunately due to time constraints (had a train home to catch), I didn’t have the opportunity to wait longer.
While I appreciate that such a scenario isn’t too common at the moment, I feel that it should be possible for a man to not only try on clothes that are have been traditionally labelled as “women’s wear” but request either different sizes or items if desired, just like a woman may wish to try on clothing from the men’s section of the store if she wished. Thought I’d just raise this as feedback to clarify your position on this or alternatively determine if there’s anything I need to do differently in such a situation in the future."
I've just submitted the following message via the "Contact Us" form on their website, shall see what they come back with. Supposed to take up to 48 hours for a response.
"Hi
On Sunday 2nd November I visited your Birmingham Bullring store right as it opened at 11:00am.
I’m a man who likes to incorporate skirts and dresses into my wardrobe so after a walk around the store, I picked up a Red tartan collared mini dress in my size and headed up to the men’s changing rooms to try it on, along with a coat that caught my eye on the men’s section.
While the dress was a perfect fit (albeit haven’t quite got the hang of doing up zips on the back!), I thought I’d request a couple of the suggested dresses to be bought over to try on via the screen in the changing room. After a couple of minutes, one of the male members of staff knocked the door and said that it wouldn’t be possible for the them to be bought over as they’re considered women’s wear.
Shortly afterwards, a female member of staff knocked on the door and asked me to request the items again, which I did. I waited about 5 minutes and nothing arrived. Unfortunately due to time constraints (had a train home to catch), I didn’t have the opportunity to wait longer.
While I appreciate that such a scenario isn’t too common at the moment, I feel that it should be possible for a man to not only try on clothes that are have been traditionally labelled as “women’s wear” but request either different sizes or items if desired, just like a woman may wish to try on clothing from the men’s section of the store if she wished. Thought I’d just raise this as feedback to clarify your position on this or alternatively determine if there’s anything I need to do differently in such a situation in the future."
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Barleymower
- Member Extraordinaire
- Posts: 2348
- Joined: Thu Jun 09, 2022 10:28 pm
Re: Kieran’s River Island Fitting Room Experience
Did you get a reply?
Re: Kieran’s River Island Fitting Room Experience
If you don’t get a positive response from them, vote with your feet. That’s what people need to do.
I don’t shop at river island and I’ve become quite a fan of AllSaints lately.l although I appreciate they are a bit more expensive than river island. My local shop is nicely laid out and they don’t have men’s and women’s labels on display . The shop is still gendered though which is something they could easily change and a missed opportunity.
Nonetheless, whenever I’ve turned up to try on skirts and dresses the staff could not be more helpful and friendly. I usually wear a skirt or a dress whenever I visit so it’s kind of obvious what my intentions are. They only have one set of changing booths, which works really well.
I don’t shop at river island and I’ve become quite a fan of AllSaints lately.l although I appreciate they are a bit more expensive than river island. My local shop is nicely laid out and they don’t have men’s and women’s labels on display . The shop is still gendered though which is something they could easily change and a missed opportunity.
Nonetheless, whenever I’ve turned up to try on skirts and dresses the staff could not be more helpful and friendly. I usually wear a skirt or a dress whenever I visit so it’s kind of obvious what my intentions are. They only have one set of changing booths, which works really well.
Re: Kieran’s River Island Fitting Room Experience
I got the following reply from them yesterday:
Hi Kieran,
Thank you for getting in contact with us and I'm very sorry to learn of your recent experience in our Birmingham Bullring store. Please know, this is not the level of service we aim to provide to our customers when shopping with us at River Island. My name is Lewis and I'll be more than happy to help.
We appreciate all feedback from our customers, as it helps us improve our processes and procedures in the future.
I’ve passed this information over to the relevant team regarding the matter you have raised. Whilst we are not able to disclose the details of our investigation, we can confirm that all necessary follow-up actions and feedback have been dealt with by the team.
In the meantime, if there’s anything else I can do to help, please let me know and I hope you have a lovely day.
Went back to them with the following as felt like quite a vague response to me:
Got this back today, will see what comes back from them. I personally don’t think I’ve done anything wrong so asked my question out of curiousity, would like to think that I can just continue to use the men’s changing room as I’ve always done, shouldn’t matter where clothes are delivered to once requested!Hi Lewis
Thanks for the reply. While I understand that you you're not in a position to provide a detailed answer, I would appreciate any further information you can provide about the actions that you've taken regarding this.
I would also like to know whether there's anything I need to do in the future in regards to trying on skirts or dresses in your stores, particularly if I wish to use the screens in your fitting rooms to request either additional items or sizes? For example, should I still use the men's fitting rooms or the women's one instead?
Admittedly this is the first kind of issue I’ve had while out and about trying on skirts & dresses, probably something they didn’t expect when designing these new smart fitting rooms but it doesn’t take much to be inclusive.
Hi Kieran,
Thank you for your response and I'm so sorry I wasn't able to provide you with an answer.
I've passed your details over to our relevant team to investigate this further. Please allow within the next 72 working hours for our team to get back to you.
We'll speak with you soon.