Our writer explores the possibilities, with surprising results...
My friend walks into the village hall, scene of my son's third birthday party, a mixture of panic and incredulity creeping across his face. "I didn't realise we were dressing up," he says, taking in my outfit. I feel myself blush. I'm wearing a mint-green tulle midi dress with sheer sleeves that balloon precociously and a tiered skirt that puffs out in such a way as to give me the appearance of either a Quality Street or a three-year-old at her own birthday party. It's not, if I'm entirely honest, the most practical of outfits for serving chocolate cake to 18 sticky-handed toddlers but, as I blurt out to my friend, keen to dispel any confusion, the avant-garde look wasn't actually my choice: it was AI's.
I love quirky clothes. Different cuts, unusual fabrics, bold colours, exciting textures. My wardrobe is my identity, my refuge, my hobby, my happy place. Or, at least, it was. Recently - since having my second baby - I've struggled to get dressed. Paralysed by choice, I am beset by decision fatigue every time I approach my (admittedly groaning) closet. With a three-year-old and a six-month-old to wrangle into clobber, too, the overwhelm has joined forces with lack of time. This morning I was hurling clothes at my body while the youngest screamed for his nap. The steady spoliation of my personal style continues apace, now stained with breast milk and squashed banana.
What I really want, I realise, as I stand naked and panicked in front of the mirror - clock ticking - is a personal stylist; someone to sift through my clothes and tell me what to wear for the nursery drop-off or a night out (in my dreams) with friends. Which is why I decided to download a styling app.
But first I had to choose one. There are several virtual wardrobes on the market, including Whering, Indyx, Combyne, 30 Wears and Good on You, all of which help users gain insights into their wearing habits. In May last year, Whering, which bills itself as a social wardrobe and styling app, revealed it had been downloaded 4m times in the three years since it launched. Other apps, such as Style DNA, Acloset, AI Stylist and Aiuta, use artificial intelligence to generate outfits from virtual wardrobes. Given that AI has infiltrated countless areas of daily life - and is already being used on a wider scale within the fashion industry to predict the next trends - it doesn't seem too much of a leap to outsource getting dressed each morning to a bot.
Some of these apps create looks by combining what you already own and what's on the market, naughtily encouraging you to buy more, while others pull together ensembles solely from your wardrobe. A few assess what colours suit you and one even allows you to try on clothes virtually. Sadly none, so far, will wash, fold or put away the items they select. But there are benefits to be had, it seems, not least in saving me time, money and angst.
Personal stylist Michelle Barrett of Capsule Closet Stylist isn't so sure. Use an app to get your "colours done," she says, and "the apps get different results each time. The algorithm is placing you into predetermined boxes based on the questions you answer and forms you fill out. I think most people fall between the cracks." What they need, she says, is to be treated as an individual. The human touch, in other words.
AI expert James Bore is similarly sceptical. "The current approach relies on a lot of source data and the AI creates outputs based on that data. It's important to note that the AI is just mashing together thousands of ideas in a way that's statistically plausible." The AI doesn't understand your look or needs. "The use of AI stylist apps is a convenient way to reduce individuality and innovation and push everyone towards becoming generic."
Generic is not for me, that's for sure. Still, I'm desperate to lift myself out of my rut and reduce the hideous stress of choosing what to wear, and so I challenge myself to delegate dressing to AI for one week.
First, I have to digitise my wardrobe. Here's how it works: you can either take photos of your clothes and upload them, or use your chosen app's search function to find the items online. (I decide early on that anything I can't be bothered to upload will go to the charity shop.) The app I choose, Acloset, is free to use up to 100 items and I'm ashamed at how quickly I hit this ceiling. I try to include a range: trousers, skirts, tops, jumpers, coats, bags, shoes. I upload some jazzy socks, but leave out underwear. It's quite intoxicating seeing my wardrobe digitised - it's like having my own online shop - and I spend time scrolling through the collection of clothes it's taken me years to build up, enjoying seeing old favourites side-by-virtual-side with shiny new pieces.
The app has a number of functions, ranging from outfit creation, which requires my input to piece together a look from my online wardrobe, to outfit generation, in which AI randomly suggests outfits with taglines such as "Just Right for the Weather" (the app has an in-built weather forecast) and "Brown Blouse Outfit Ideas", using the one brown blouse I own. I can also ask the app to "style" me an outfit based on a series of factors, including occasion (Date? Work? Travel? School? Wedding?), location, day of the week and colour preference.
I soon find that these factors are not nearly specific enough for my lifestyle. Instead of "date" or "work", I need "Getting the Toddler's Flu Vaccine" or "Another Day of Cleaning Weetabix Off a Highchair". Which is how I end up, on the first day of the challenge, wearing a voluminous red midi skirt, a burgundy puff-sleeve top, red socks and silver Mary Jane pumps to a baby class.
I'd have been comfier in jeans and Converse - much easier for crawling around in - but decide to do as I'm told and wear the first outfit AI generates for me. And I don't hate it. The look is bold, sure, but because I've outsourced the decision to a bot, I find I don't actually feel self-conscious in it: AI is encouraging me to push the sartorial envelope again - and I like it.
I also like the fact it takes me less than a minute to get dressed. The system isn't perfect, of course - AI (which, presumably, doesn't feel the cold itself) apparently deems a jumper and coat unnecessary in mid-November, meaning I have to add an oversized wool sweater and a leopard print bomber jacket myself - but it's pretty good.
Some of its choices work more than others. The cream satin maxi skirt paired with my fuchsia satin shirt, an oversized fawn jumper and pink platform Converse has me dancing in front of the mirror. But the striped rugby top, which I usually wear with the tulle skirt to balance out its sportiness, is matched to plain jeans and practical trainers: a perfectly respectable look but one that is a little too "Soccer Mom" for my taste.
The misses are as valuable as the hits, though, with both helping me reevaluate - and rediscover - what I enjoy wearing. And, while it would be great if I could be more specific about daily plans, sometimes I like the app's broad brush strokes. I'm secretly pleased, for example, when, for my son's birthday party, it chooses the partiest of all my party dresses; one I wouldn't have had the courage to wear without a virtual nudge, but which I thoroughly enjoy flouncing around in on the day.
In fact, I like the app so much I have every intention of continuing to use it once the week is up. Then, the Monday after the experiment, my three-year-old gets a sickness bug. As I frantically search for a bowl for him to vomit into, baby on my hip and porridge matted into my hair, I realise there's quite a lot in life I'd like to outsource to AI. I opt for pyjamas that day, dug out from the bottom of the drawer and certainly not chosen by an app.
Oddly, despite my intentions to, I haven't gone back - although I also haven't panicked, naked, in front of the mirror while a pile of clothes on the bed teeters. It's as though one week of AI dressing has jump-started something within me. My sense of personal style, perhaps, reignited after months of dormancy.
Far from overwriting my individuality, each AI-generated outfit had an essential me-ness running through it like thread, born, as it was, from my wardrobe. Perhaps this is why people couldn't actually tell my outfits that week weren't selected by me. While one friend was taken aback at my choice of dress for a children's birthday party, others didn't bat an eyelid, with one even saying afterwards: "I just thought it was such a 'you' outfit."
