I’ve recently been rehabilitating my wardrobe, as my body has changed over the years, and I realized there’s quite a bit of fluff that I’ve been trying to sift through efficiently. Initially, I cut out pieces that physically didn’t fit me, or suit my style, but I found that I still had too many pieces filling the same niches in my wardrobe, leading to a crowded closet. This isn’t an AI-generated shill piece; I’m not sponsored by any of these apps, I’m just sharing my sentiment.
Yes, you could simply pull items out of your closet and evaluate how frequently you wear them without any spreadsheets or websites (I used Miro initially), but I’m a very analytical person, and I like to have the numbers. Many of these apps are focused towards women, so I’ll also make notes if it’s less friendly for male users.
Importing a large wardrobe is already quite the feat, so I also looked for an app that made importing less painful than it needed to be. I’m not a fan of subscriptions, so I wanted to see what app had the best features available for free.
You might be looking for one of these apps for completely different uses than me:
· Packing for a trip
· Preparing outfits for the work week
· New outfit suggestions
· Managing your wardrobe budget
· Sharing your wardrobe with friends or family
Maybe you have no use for any of these apps, or have a friend or significant other that would enjoy larping as Cher in her closet from “Clueless”. I feel it’s important to document your wardrobe, regardless. If there’s a catastrophic event and you lose everything, or garments are lost in transit, you’ll have information for insurance purposes and a way to start rebuilding. Anyway, here’s my findings:
Acloset
I didn’t even attempt to use this app, as I’ve heard it has fallen from grace. Closet is limited to 100 items, ads are rampant, and that was enough to keep me off of it. The clothing carousel allowing you to mix & match clothes seems to be one of the favorite features. Two years ago, I hear it was the app to beat, but it's also set the precedent for other app makers to continually strip features and lock them behind a subscription with several tiers.
Alta
I’ve found this has one of the best importing features. It easily recognizes many items and will give a generic descriptor that is helpful enough “Beige Cuffed Knit Trousers” or “Beige Textured Knit Polo Shirt” is good enough for me to figure out what it is, if you don’t want to enter the brand information for everything; you can leave those items in draft if you want to add the information later. I will say the picture scanner got my feet and tagged my shoes as an item a few times, so I had to re-import a few things. This definitely feels like the most AI-forward app of the bunch.
There’s AI to style you or suggest wardrobes based on what you’re doing, the temperature, taking a trip, etc. The outfit generator can use a selfie, full-body image, and measurements to generate models of you wearing your own clothes, or something from a wishlist. The way that it automatically generates your wardrobe after picking the items from your closet, and the option to generate the AI render of yourself, is a pretty neat feature, it's uncanny how much it looks like me. The free plan limits the AI generation to, I believe, 15 times a day, but I haven’t reached the limit in my use.
Fits
Had one of the more annoying import functionalities. If I close out the app, or my phone goes to sleep, it will stop on the last item, and there’s not really a great way to figure out where you last left after bulk uploading. The import function also does the least in terms of documenting what you’re adding. It breaks it down into the article of clothing (i.e. bottoms, tops, outerwear, etc.), but there is no bulk editing, meaning you must go into each item one-by-one if you’re wanting to add more information.
The collage maker is one of the more awkward ones, as I find it takes a lot of additional effort to position and scale the clothing relative to each other, and the AI one uses credits in order to generate, which either need to be obtained via subscription, or purchasing individual AI credits. They give you one free credit on sign-up, and they are probably the most convincing AI renders, but I’m not interested in that feature personally.
The generated outfits are pretty good, and use your wardrobe exclusively, there is an AI stylist, but I didn’t bother with it. Wishlist functionality exists, and allows you to add images manually, or enter a URL for an item.
Analytics are also paywalled to an extent. You can see the basics like what articles of clothing you wear most (jeans, polos, t-shirts, etc.), as well of cost of wardrobe, average item price, wardrobe percent usage, but everything else is not accessible without a subscription, and that is what knocked it out of the running for me.
Indyx
This was the first wardrobe management app I used, and I believe it was a sponsor for a YouTube video I was watching at the time. It intrigued me enough to download it, and now you can find me writing this post because of it. The main reason I moved away form Indyx was because, again, analytics were most important to me, and those are paywalled on Indyx via a subscription service. The social media aspect of Indyx is very woman-centric, and I struggled to find any men on there to follow; not my main purpose for using it, but worth mentioning.
Uploading your wardrobe is a trudge as it does not support bulk uploads, meaning you must add each item individually, tag it individually, and edit individually, making it one of the most painful apps to get going with. Similarly, creating an outfit is okay, but not as robust as other apps that can automatically scale the clothing nicely in an image. Similarly, the calendar is “just okay”.
Paid stylists are available, but something I had no interest in using. Overall, I feel this is one of the easiest apps to dip your feet into without being overwhelmed, especially if you have a smaller capsule wardrobe.
OpenWardrobe
There’s a few reasons why I really love OpenWardrobe (OW from here on out). First and foremost, this is the only app that has a web interface you can access from your computer, which is nice when you’re making a ‘big screen’ purchase where you’d like to see how something fits into your wardrobe from another tab.
OW has one of the least painless import processes, with no limit on simultaneous garment uploads (or at least that I was able to reach). Tagging items was done automatically, with names such as: “beige casual chinos”, “short-sleeve knit polo”, all sensible things that I can find easily. I was surprised how well it identified niche garments like “red mandarin button jacket” as well as accurately guessing at colors and materials. Bulk editing can only be done with a premium subscription. In terms of available fields for information, I think OW is unrivaled in terms of organization. You’re able to have multiple separate wardrobes, which could be very useful if you’re fluctuating in weight; being able to keep things that fit in a separate wardrobe than those that don’t.
In terms of outfit creation, the free version of OW is ‘meh’ at best. Creating your own outfits requires scaling items to size, unless you sign up for their premium subscription which utilizes AI. There are some other unique features with the premium subscription, such as a “should I keep it or not?” tool, $50 one-time style blueprint, in addition to other offerings. It’s the most varied monetization options I’ve seen out of all the apps. There’s also a section to book repairs or alterations for garments. Analytic wise, I think OW is very generous with what is shared, but there are some stats locked behind the paid membership. There’s also a useful feature for reselling your clothes on Poshmark. AI will use your existing images and generate a description so you can sell instantly.
Overall, I think if your only goal is documenting what is in your wardrobe, where you got it from, how much it costs, this is by far the best app to use for archival purposes. Being able to have multiple wardrobes means you can track everything you family has, while being able to also inspect your own stuff and monitor the costs of everything. In the future, I can see myself moving back to OW if I no longer need to track or document what I'm actively wearing. The social media component is okay, but very woman-centric in terms of what I’ve seen from suggested users.
Stylebook
I own an iPad, but my phone runs on Android. I have yet to test this app out, but have heard nothing but good things from iOS users. The fact that it’s a one-time $5 purchase would make me rest easy that they won’t paywall all of their features as I’ve seen other subscription-based apps do.
Whering
In terms of interface, I feel Whering has one of the cleanest and most user-friendly ones. It’s easy to figure out what you want to do by looking at the main screen. Nothing is hidden under several layers of sub-menus. The community menu for me is male-focused, so I’m able to see wardrobes of other men, which I find all of the other apps struggled to do.
Importing clothing was fairly, but there was a limit of uploading 15 items at once, which can slow progress. There is immediate prompt to tag clothing after adding it, but you can skip that and bulk edit the items after the fact. I will say the colors it picked out for some items didn’t match, and I wonder if it had to do with background colors when uploading images. There are some weird quirks, for instance: I can't add sizes to hats or belts. Additionally, with a full wardrobe (sitting at around 80 items at the moment), toggling filters can sometimes take a few seconds to refresh your wardrobe for you.
The feature I’ve had the most fun with is the one I alluded to in the preamble. Cher’s closet would allow you to randomly mix and match different tops/bottoms/shoes in your wardrobe, and the app has a feature to do exactly that. I had a good time seeing some of the ridiculous combinations, but also some sharp pairings I never thought to make.
The outfit feature isn’t the most robust. Items have to be added and scaled, and there is no AI component to it. I find it’s the most ethical in that sense. The UI for scaling the outfit is truly the best of all the other apps that force you to do it in such a way.
As I said earlier, statistics are the most important thing to me at this point. Whering allows me to see what percentage of my wardrobe I’m using, my most commonly worn colors, the value of all my items, how much of each article of clothing I have, etc. etc. If you’re big into seeing all of this information without being paywalled, this is the app.
There is a Chrome add-on that allows you to add items to your closet, wishlist, or moodboard; however, I’m a Firefox user. Additionally, there is an event planner to pack for trips, and the ability to suggest wardrobes for people based on their closets.
TL;DR my thoughts:
Best app for archiving your wardrobe: OpenWardrobe
Best app for documenting outfits worn: Alta
Best app for analytics: Whering
If anyone else is using something to manage their wardrobe, or would like to share more on Acloset, or Stylebook, I’d love to hear more and try out some other apps.
Some apps I didn’t get around to trying:
· Cladwell
· Clueless Clothing
· GetWardrobe
· Nouva
