Apps that teach you how to dress well

If you have ever stood before your cupboard, looking lost and wondering what to wear, you can get inspiration by simply reorganising your clothes according to the colour tones and accessories. In that case, the following apps are just what you need. They will help you put together great outfits, matching colours to accessories and even taking the weather into consideration.

Cloth

The idea of cloth, which is an iPhone and iPod Touch app, came from a fashionista who had more than 1,000 items in her cupboard and wanted to catalogue the seemingly endless combinations.

According to www.techlicious.com, cloth lets you add Instagram-like effects to your photos and encourages you to share photos of your favourite outfits with friends on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. The more you share, the more badges and points you receive.

You can also tag outfits with descriptors such as ‘vacation,’ ‘everyday’ or ‘events’ so as to pull up all related looks in one place. Also, with an in-app purchase, you can tag outfits with weather, such as ‘cold’ or ‘rain’; that way, you’ll be automatically presented with outfits appropriate for the day’s weather. (The app is free on iTunes).

Stylebook

People who enjoy planning their outfits will appreciate Stylebook’s powerful features. Not only will you use your iPhone, iPod or iPad to snap photos of individual items in your wardrobe, you can remove the image backgrounds and then pull several images onto a white canvas to see how they’ll look together. If an item you pull into the ensemble appears out of proportion, the resizing tool lets you scale it down to the appropriate size.

Stylebook also lets you shop for new items and even has a calendar so you can commit to wearing a particular outfit day, week or month in advance. If you want inspiration about low-tech gear that can help you organise your wardrobe, Stylebook will give you some ideas.

Stylicious

Stylicious has many of the same features as Cloth and Stylebook but it is designed for Android users. It lets you snap photos of your clothes, shoes and accessories and tag as well as categorise them to let you pull up similar items together.

It includes a calendar to help you plan outfits and keep track of what you wore and when you wore them.

Stylicious is geared towards shopping and includes fashion ideas, a tab in which you can see which items are most wished for in some countries. It is a handy feature that lets you bookmark particular brands and show you only items that are on sale. You can also share images you have stored in Stylicious on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr. (The app is free on Google Play Store).

Houzz

If you are thinking about going beyond reorganising your wardrobe, use Houzz. It is a web platform and a mobile app. It features more than two million photos uploaded by remodelling and design professionals.  A search for the term “closet” for instance, will return nearly 50,000 photos. If you want to see only photos of shoe racks, Houzz offers more than 1,300 unique ideas.

If you need professional help with your project, Houzz lets you filter its community of professionals according to location and type of service you need as well as which services have been recently reviewed or most reviewed. (The app is free on iTunes and Google Play).