Pointers Offers Personal Shopping Service From Home

It’s a conundrum for most women: you can’t afford a personal shopper, but you hate wasting a day at the mall, pushing through crowds and feeling ignored by the overwhelmed salespeople at the stores. You can shop online, of course, but then you’re gambling on clothes you can’t see, feel or try on.

What if there were another option – a way to shop for of-the-minute clothing in an intimate, unrushed setting with the complete attention of a knowledgeable attendant? There is.

Park resident Carrie Moore is opening her home for a week to women interested in the spring clothing line from Etcetera, a “chic everyday lifestyle brand for women on the go.” Samples of each piece in the 215-item collection are arrayed on racks in her living room for perusal by appointment.

Etcetera’s clothing, which comes out four times a year in spring, summer, fall and holiday collections, is available nationwide through appointment-only trunk shows and is never found at department or discount stores. Moore, a physical fitness instructor who worked in Ford’s marketing division for several years, sees the expansion of Etcetera in Grosse Pointe as filling a gap in shopping options for working women.

Traveling tailors routinely visit Detroit’s downtown offices to present suit and fabric choices to busy professional men, she said, but there aren’t similar services for their female counterparts.

At price points similar to what’s sold at and , Etcetera’s separates-only collection consists of dresses, tops and bottoms made from silks, cottons, synthetics and blends sourced exclusively from Europe. The line’s designers, who have worked for major New York fashion houses, incorporate hot trends in each collection.

The 2011 spring collection at Moore’s house, for example, features “minimalism” with clean, simple lines, whites and neutrals, short-shorts, decorative zippers, sheath dresses, nautical motifs, bold colors and elements of “Seventies chic.”

Kathy Gregory, an area development manager for Etcetera who lives in Grosse Pointe Park, said the line has developed a reputation for quality, durability, attention to detail, and sound construction characterized by finished seams as well as strategically placed darts and ample hem allowances that facilitate tailoring when modifications are needed.

Sales representatives such as Moore are trained to help shoppers determine the items that work best for their shape and size, sizes 0 to 16 or extra small through extra large, and how to choose items that can be used in different combinations for a maximum number of looks. While shoppers are welcome to leave with just one piece, says Gregory, others may come with a budget of $1,500 and leave with pieces that can be arranged to make seven different outfits.

Etcetera sales consultants like Moore make shopping more productive, said Gregory, who believes they replicate the experience previous generations of women had at department stores such as Hudson’s, where clerks learned the style and preferences of all their regular customers.

An Etcetera sales consultant “has a relationship with you from season to season. She know what you bought in the summer and can help you find pieces that will work with that in the fall,” Gregory said, adding that Etcetera is “true” to its colors, meaning a coral-colored piece from the spring line will go with a coral-colored piece from the summer collection.

Moore, who is showing the collection until Feb. 23, can be reached for daytime, evening and weekend appointments by email or by phone, (586) 718-7813.