Would you trust a stylist with 50,000 clients to get your look right?

Last week, I bought a selection of clothes recommended by an online personal stylist: a pair of skinny Topman jeans, a perfectly fitting white T-shirt from Jack & Jones, and most daringly – for me, anyway – some khaki chino shorts by Pull&Bear. We'd carried out the consultation online, with me sharing not only obvious information like my size, desired price range and "daringness" (with "daring" defined as wearing floral shirts or shorts with blazers), but also helping her work out my actual style preferences by telling her brands I like and flicking through endless pictures of well-dressed men to highlight the looks I want. This is no AI horror story, though. My stylist Sophie Bailey-Hine is very real, and her and her colleagues at Thread, a British startup that was founded in 2012, are currently helping 480,000 men find a new image, dress well, or simply sort out their clothes shopping. There is one small twist: Thread has just eight stylists.