Because you can't have depths without surfaces.
Linda Grant, thinking about clothes, books and other matters.
Pure Collection Ltd.
Net-a-porter UK

Tuesday 3 February 2009

The best thing since chocolate


If you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch then your life is about to be transformed by this little girls' gadget

You take photographs of all your clothes, upload them to the app, and then put together outfits. (I now know I have twenty bags, after a major clear-out last year.) You even click on when you wore an item last so you can scroll down and see if you've got value for money for that sale dress

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

There are few other good ones too! Style.com has a free app that is entire their web site enabled for iTouch andiPhone. I can look at runway collections from a comfy chair instead of sitting in front of a computer! Chanel and Ralph Lauren have also uploaded free apps for recent collections. There is a link to all three in a post I did on Sewing Divas:
http://thesewingdivas.wordpress.com/2009/01/10/fashion-at-your-fingertips/

Anonymous said...

I would hate this gadget and really can't see the point of it. Putting together outfits is not just about a flat 2D experience. Nothing can replace the sensual delight of sliding into your clothes. For me it's a special treat I allow myself two or three times a year, usually at the change of seasons when I unpack my summer or winter wardrobe, to spend half a day trying on clothes I'd forgotten about and planning outfits, etc. But the thought of doing it on a screen instead of on my body just seems unnecessarily removed and takes away all enjoyment.

What are the advantages of it? If I have a dress that I only wore once it would still be value for money if I loved it.

Maybe I'm just too subjective and emotionally attached to my clothes and the act of self-presentation, in which case this gadget is not for me. I just think nothing replaces a mirror.

Linda Grant said...

Because my wardrobe is so packed I can't see what I have and I forget about items. Of course you try them on, but it's just a way of playing around with different combinations to see what they look like, before you get them out of the wardrobe, and have to put them back again.

Anonymous said...

That is enough to make me get an iPhone. My wardrobe is jam-packed and it's only when I lever it open that I find something amazing that I had entirely forgotten I'd ever owned. Cue my standard response to the compliment, "that's nice; where did you get it?"

"Oh I found it in a cupboard". Just this morning, when I was searching for my hiking boots so that I could trudge safely to work, I found a very nice top from Barneys (in its dry-cleaning bag) that I had entirely forgotten I owned.

Last week I thought (once again) about the rather low-tech idea of taking pictures of all of my shoes and bags and sticking them on the boxes/bags that hold them and also in a collage. I had been meaning to do that for years (and if the snow had held up today, that might have been this evening's project) but this is a much better solution.

Can you password protect the application? I know that there are public versions of this on websites but I don't need the whole world to know that X is the suit that I wear when I am feeling fat, but that it needs oomph from Y bra.

Susan B said...

I've been teetering on the brink of getting the iPhone, and this may have just pushed me over the edge.

(Heh, word verification is "emogynes")

Duchesse said...

My clothes would look great on a tiny screen but between me and the mirror is the truth.

Anonymous said...

A copy on computer or web-based file (computer somewhere other than your house) would be a good idea for insurance purposes, in nasty events such as fire, flooding, burglaries...

(Of course, this could be an incentive to clean out overstuffed cupboards)...

Anonymous said...

P.S. - I am so in love with this app!! I can even use to to plan sewing proejcts! I can build an outfit with the pattern techncial drawing, a fabric swatch and then add bags and shoes. My inner designer is very happy.

Linda Grant said...

As the days go on, I think this app is genius. My bags are all kept in their dustbags in their wardrobe, lacking as I do an American walk in closet. Last night, I flicked through the pics of bags to go with with my outfit for a dinner, made the selection and grabbed the right bag instead of taking five of them out.

Anonymous said...

Linda, but isn't taking five of them out part of the fun of getting ready? I love taking out my handbags for a few moments and enjoying them - it's like paying them a visit. Are we really so busy that we can't spare a few moments for that sort of enjoyment?

As far as I can see this thing allows you to make 2D judgements on a 3D activity. It reminds me of the cut-out figure and clothes with tabs that you used to get on the back of Bunty magazine in the 60s. It was fun, but as nothing compared to dressing Barbie.

Linda Grant said...

If it were a few moments, fine. But it is actually rummaging through my wardrobe in a frenzied hurry, throwing stuff around all over the place and then having to put it all back again which for a non-tidy person like myself just adds to what is already barely controlled chaos.

This is not an either/or situation. It's simply a way of organising your clothes and accessories which some of us find helpful and others, it seems, do not.

In the few days since I have had it it has given me a far better insight into what I own and what works with what. If that is the case, why knock it? And if you have a different way of achieving the same thing, great.

StyleSpy said...

Argh. Dying for an iPhone, but unwilling to move my service to AT&T from my present carrier (they have an exclusive agreement here in the States.)

I have a client for whom I created an online database of photos of her wardrobe, and she does find it useful. This is one step better because you can assemble actual outfits rather than look at one piece at a time. It's a lot of time at the front end, getting all the pictures taken and labeled, but it pays off.

Anonymous said...

On top of everything else I now want an iPhone...I love the idea of this. You can still get your stuff out and try it on. I also think it would stop me duplicating things that I have forgotten that I have. I do have a tendency to wear a fraction of the clothes I have and end up with loads of hardly worn things that I don't want to wear now, but don't want to give/throw away. Will now waste time trying to decide whether it's the iPhone or the iTouch I won't buy...yet

Mardel said...

Gee this is what I have been looking for. I do the seasonal thing and agree there is nothing like trying on, discovering new combinations, and then wearing them. But then I forget what I put with what. I have been photographing the outfits, but setting up a useful way to catalog them and find them has been more problematic. This looks like a great tool.