There’s an end in sight to those nerve-fraying shopping sprees with crying kids in tow.
The day Lauri Chertok momentarily lost her young son in a clothing store was the same day she vowed never to take her children shopping with her again. She stuck to this plan for years, until she determined a better solution—her Measuring Up app.
With an extensive background in the fashion industry, Chertok applied her retail knowledge and experience as a mother to designing an app that instructs users on how to correctly measure children (and adults) to ensure a perfect fit. Employing a simple system for measuring key parts of the body, users record measurements in the app. Convenient features, like a conversion chart and the ability to email measurements from the app, add to its user-friendly appeal.
“I knew there had to be a better way,” Chertok says, citing the problems that she had seen mothers face during her years of working in retail. Mothers often didn’t bring children to the store so as to avoid unpleasantness. Instead, they might purchase items in multiple sizes for their kids to try on at home, which meant spending money unnecessarily and wasting time by having to return ill-fitting items.
Even though her children were adults by the time Chertok developed the software, she wanted to help other parents by minimizing the struggles associated with dragging uncooperative children into fitting rooms—often during stifling summer days in search of back-to-school wardrobe items. “I know this is not going to change the world,” says Chertok. “It’s a small aid, but it does make people’s lives easier, and that’s a big deal to me.”
Measuring Up has proven to be a successful resource for parents, judging from the feedback Chertok has received. Furthering her efforts to simplify the shopping experience, Chertok recently published a book titled Measuring Up, which includes the same graphics and information as the app software.
Available on Amazon.com on Aug. 1, the book includes a new inventory section in which parents can record existing wardrobe items and keep track of what’s needed for each new season.
Measuring Up is a godsend for both parents and children. By having the necessary measurements readily accessible, parents deal with fewer temper tantrums and children spend less time in fitting rooms—it’s a win-win situation. “If clothes don’t fit [right], if they’re tight or [something], kid[s] don’t feel great about themselves,” says Chertok. “But there’s no greater compliment than someone coming along and saying, ‘Your kids look fabulous.’” measuringupapp.com