Fabletics Women's Sportswear: my review

Sample outfits on Fabletics.

I am always on the hunt for cute workout clothes—preferably on sale.

I kept getting Pandora pop-up ads for Fabletics. They were on my radar for cute workout wear, but I could never find the cute capris in the ads actually in stock.

By chance I happened to click on Fabletics on the first of the month when they release new products. And I found some capris that I had to have. I bought them immediately.

I went ahead and signed up for the VIP membership. They're an online subscription retailer where you can buy an outfit every month. If you sign up for the VIP membership, you can get better prices, but  the catch is you have to remember to login the first of every month to buy or decline the month. I could live with that, I thought (though I do have huge doubts.)

They also have a new member signup deal where your first outfit is $25. The catch is you have 48 hours from signing up to redeem that deal. So only sign up for their service if you want to buy immediately. I'd signed up a few months ago for their service (not the VIP membership), so I couldn't get the $25 deal. And I didn't really want any outfits. (I have a ton of workout clothes). I just wanted the capris (cute capris that aren't black are hard to find.)

For my first time ordering, I got 20% off the capris. It took a while to get a shipping confirmation, but after that they came in shortly. And they were the wrong size. I'me between a small and an extra-small in workout pants. I opted for the xs, because that's what they said a size 4 was. I'm a 4. I couldn't even fit my thigh in those pants.

I exchanged them. And exchanges are easy enough. You exchange them online. And when you put the return pair in the mail, they'll send out the new pair. (During this time, I was worried that they would sell out of the smalls.) Finally, my capris came in the mail. The smalls fit. They seemed to be a good quality. The exchange was free and I was happy about that.

First capri I ordered from Fabletics.

The next month, I wanted a pair of printed capris and it took forever to find an outfit I liked. (The site sells workout wear in terms on outfits. See image at top.)I like the bottoms and the tops, but never in the combinations they pick out. And when an outfit is $50 and the pants are $40 it makes sense to go ahead and buy the outfit. I found two outfits with the tops and bottoms I liked—and when I went to order that night, a lot of the styles that were there that morning were already sold out. I picked an outfit, added a top in the sale section and they offered me another top for $10 so I added that for my August outfit.

The outfit came in the mail. The capris (now that I know what size I am) are adorable and I wore them right away. The sale top was a lot cheaper than it looked online, but was okay. The top that came with the outfit and the $10 add-on tops were extremely cheap. I took one look at them and knew they were going back. They were also huge. I went ahead and ordered a small—after having to order up in the capris, but the small was way too big.

This top was cheaper than it looked, but for $20 it was okay.
TjMaxx has the same kind of stuff for the same price, and you can try their clothes on.

This top runs big, is super cheap and I had to call to return it.

I tried to send these tops back online, like I did last month. Only I couldn't. It said I had to call their 800 number and talk to someone weekdays between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. It was 8:50 p.m. when they sent me this message so I called them the next day. I was only hold for about 4 minutes before getting a girl who called herself O'Hara (what Indian girl calls themself O'Hara? And clearly she was at an overseas call center. Very thick accent.) It took five minutes for her to understand that I wanted to exchange two tops for a pair of capris. And then she returned one top for the capris and gave me a refund for the other top. It took her a while to figure out that I wanted the RIO RUN CAPRI IN BLUE LAVA. I said that like 10 times. Why I had to talk to her to do this, I don't know. It was annoying. I'd rather do this online. But no language barrier.

But a least she let me return the items. I was worried, I was going to have to dispute the charge on my credit card and/or cancel my Fab membership. I was fully prepared for this conversation.

Then, the return label she promised me took forever to get to me. I expected it to be in my inbox when I hung up the phone—that's the speed of email. But after our 9:30 a.m. conversation I got the return label at 6 p.m. After the post office closed. So much for having that taken care of that day.

Verdict: Would I recommend this service? Maybe.

I HATE that you have to buy in outfits. I never like two of the pieces that come together. I like some of the tops and some of the bottoms, but not in the combinations they choose. I just have a lot of workout tanks and don't need their tanks.

Their tops are EXTREMELY CHEAP. I might never buy another tank from them again. I like dry-fit performance tanks—not cheap see-through cotton.

That said, they do have a good variety of workout wear, that other ladies at the gym probably won't be wearing.

Sizing: I think their pants run small and their tops run big.

Annoyances: Their wish list feature currently isn't working. Their search is also not user-friendly. You can search by products by name (desio, flourish, but can't search for "blue tank" or "pink lava capri".

VIP membership. I'm very way of this. I don't mind checking in on the first of the month. That's easy enough to remember, but I worry it will be a pain in the ass to cancel in a few months when I'm tired of this service (when my husband yells at me for having too many workout clothes. It's probably deserved. It's an addiction.)