White House Black Market

I am extremely dissatisfied and disappointed by White House Black Market. I have been a loyal customer there for many years, and I refer both my colleagues and friends to the store. Any quality problems with there products are promptly addressed and exchangeable. However, I recently spent $ 100 on a pair of dress pants for work. When I got to work I realized that they were a size to big, even though they were the same size I wear in their jeans, which fit snugly. I went to exchange them the next day and they refused to exchange them because I had worn them once. The clerk said that I should take them to a tailor. In the future if I am going to spend $ 100 on a pair of pants, I will make sure to take my business to Nordstrom, Macys, or any of the many retail establishments that will except exchanges for the wrong size.

I think if you were to describe the concept of this store to anyone who grew up in, say, the depression, or probably any man in general, and said, «oh yeah it’s this awesome store where the clothes only come in black and white!» you’d probably get a reaction somewhere between «in my day we were lucky to even have clothes!» to «is that a good thing?» WHBM is definitely a «concept» store. I sometimes like that concept, but overall I think they’re a little full of themselves.
Many of the clothes are basics paired with accent pieces, which is absolutely fine by me. They have been making this amazing little cardigan for years which I love, but cannot justify paying $ 70 for, and which they have never put on sale. I bought my rehearsal dinner dress here, and they have a wide variety of formality in their clothes. Some, however, look very trashy; short little corset tops embroidered with upholstery-​style floral patterns. Just very strange.
I did recently come here in my attempt to find a somewhat formal cocktail dress. I think I found it, which is great. On their seasonal/​party/​holiday merchandise, they are now putting these exterior tags that basically say «this tag must be attached in order to return this garment.» To me, this shows that a) the economy sucks and people consider returning garments after one wearing and b) these garments are priced so high that people feel compelled to do so. I can see the logic of the b) option. The dresses are expensive, and somewhat unreasonably so. I’ve never had a garment fall apart or anything, but they have lacked the attention to detail and comfort that seems to justify a high price tag.
Additionally, at this store specifically (and Cherry Creek as well) the staff is just snotty. When trying on the aforementioned dress I found, the saleswomen all gawked after some loaded lady trying on piles of clothing, and proceeded to stand around in the dressing area discussing their pant sizes. The conversation between the employees literally included this: «well…I just don’t think I’ll ever be a size 0. I’ve worked so hard and now i’m a 2. I used to be a 4… oh but look at you, other sales lady! You’re so tiny!» «Oh…thanks…i could be a 0 if I wanted but I’m keeping the weight on because I like size 2.»
Seriously. I wanted to gag. I’m in the dressing room inhaling myself into a size 6 dress while the women outside are giving me a strange dysmorphia complex. Not only do I find that kind of discussion extremely personal, I find it extremely inappropriate considering they are employees.
Then they run around finding more dresses for me saying things like «have you gotten this dress for your size 6?» I ended up sneaking out of the store to avoid having to come up with some excuse for not buying the dress I liked besides «you make me uncomfortable, string bean!» By the end of my time in the dressing room I felt like running out and screaming, «I am not a leper! I am a human being!»

I LOVE they style of this place! Right now ‘fuchsia’ is the accent color… and I swear I could walk out with ½ the store!
Got a cute little dress on the clearance rack (totally check that section out for those bargains!)

I love this store because it’s mostly black and white clothing, which is mostly what I wear. For the past couple of years they’ve tried to throw in a bit of color into a few of their pieces, usually somewhere in the reds, but it’s not over-​done. The quality is great, and I can always find something that fits and that I feel great wearing. They have looks from casual to formal and everything in between, but always very classic in style. So while WHBM is a bit pricey, it’s easy to justify buying from there because the clothes aren’t dated after one season of wear. They have awesome sales fairly regularly. The staff is very friendly and attentive, extremely helpful.

It takes a couple blinks once you walk in the door to verify that you are indeed still seeing in color. Like the name suggests, virrtually everything in this store is black or white (or some combo of the two). This works for me though since I tend to shun fads, stick to the classics, and generally look like a black and white movie starlet myself. (HA!)
While I was crusing the store, picking up everything that wasn’t nailed down, the shop ladies were attentive, but not like circling sharks (I HATE that), and offered to take my items and start a dressing room for me (I LOVE that). They didn’t pester me every two minutes in the dressing room but just touched base enough to swap some items for me to the correct size .The dressing room was roomy and had a great hubby/​boyfriend parking area. Hubby appreciated the seat (the better to read his «I-​got-​dragged-​out-​shopping» book) and I appreciated having Hubby nearby to solicit opinions from.
The clothes were really cute and nicely made! The biggest problem I had was trying to decide which cute little black and white dress to adopt into my closet. Well, that and trying to figure out exactly how much black a little white dress must posses in order to be acceptable garb for a wedding. You know, so as not to steal the bride’s monopoly on white. For a store dedicated to these two colors I really feel as if these guidelines ought to be posted clearly somewhere.
PS: There were quite a few sales racks to choose from and not everything on them was last season’s clothing, so some of my dress contenders were up to half off.
PPS: You can pick up all your black and white jewelry and shoes here too.