I Heart Looklet

For those of us that still daydream of playing dress up with our Barbie dolls there is a new online outlet that promises to suck up more of your day than Facebook. During my ritual fashion blog trolling I came across Fashion Squad, a blog written by model-stylist Carolina Engman who was one of the stylists consulted in the making of Looklet. Looklet is a new website that let's you be the virtual stylist pulling from an archive of actually existent fashion pieces and styling them on a model.

Starting with a blank canvas (e.g. an image of a model in her skivvies) you can scan the closet in categories such as dresses, skirts, tops, shoes, accessories, etc or by designer which runs through the high-low spectrum from high street, mass-fash brands like Top Shop, H&M and Zara all the way to luxe designer labels like Alexander McQueen, Yves Saint Laurent and Commes des Garcons. It is the ultimate game of mix and match where you get to be the fashion editor.

I was initially surprised by the bold-faced brands that have provided their products to be used on this site, but I think we are baring witness to a new level of marketing for fashion brands. It's another way for designers to propagate their brand to the masses by a making it more accessible and thus more coveted.

Looklet is extremely user-friendly, and is as simple as picking a piece you want to use, clicking and it plops itself on the model. I expected the software to be clumsy and limiting but to my surprise there were so many different options to the ways to style the clothes other than simply matching outfits together. The program gives increased variety in the way a look turns out by allowing you to tuck shirts in, leave them buttoned or unbuttoned and layer pieces over each other. You can even chose different ways for the scarves to be worn. Are you feeling more Grace Kelly or or maybe a little MK?

This website is still in the developing stages and not yet open to the public, but Fashion Squad provided a passcode for her readers to login and check out the current product and provide feedback. I figure, since this information is already in the public domain, I will share it here as well.

Login to the website using the invitation code: LOOKLET-3644220725

The site as is runs pretty smoothly, my only requests are that they add an option to layer pieces within the same category (what?! you can't wear two necklaces or a necklace and a bracelet?) and that they immediately increase the footwear options. How are there no black shoes? Major oversight in my book.

I definitely plan to keep checking back on the website to see the new clothing and accessories I can play with (many, many more are promised before the official launch of the site). For now, I thought I'd personalize the images used for this post and share some of the outfits I created below (as well as the look in the above image, which is a snapshot of the actual site design).