***I’m giving away a LIFETIME SUBSCRIPTION to Cladwell on Instagram (open worldwide) right now! Read this, then go enter!***
I first read about Cladwell in an article about sustainable fashion. It piqued my interest enough that I signed up for the free 7 day trial, and I loved it so much that I pitched a partnership to the folks at Cladwell who were on board! I told them I appreciated how their styling app fits in with my “experiences over stuff” and “less waste” philosophies, and they replied that quite literally that’s what they are about!
What it is:
Cladwell is an app (currently for iOS) that recommends outfits for you every day, straight from your own closet!
How it works:
- You fill your virtual closet with items from your actual closet, using Cladwell’s massive database, or by adding photos of your own for anything you can’t find. I got 11-year-old Eva to do the setup part for me, which she loved, though it took much longer than it should have because we hadn’t yet discovered the filters. She scrolled through every category in its entirety looking for items to match mine, instead of narrowing down t-shirt, white, short-sleeved, crew neck, etc. – so much easier.
- Every day the app recommends three different outfits for you to choose from as you wish.
- You can click on dates to schedule your outfits in advance (or to log past looks), and to go back and see your history with detailed stats on how often you’ve worn each item, what you wear the most/least, most-worn colours, etc.
Here’s a peek at part of my closet (I haven’t put winter sweaters in yet as I’m trying to rotate through as much of the rest of my wardrobe as I can before the subzero temps hit; I also didn’t include my home “uniform” of t-shirts, yoga pants and hoodies):
My favourite features:
- The huge variety of items to help you fill your closet. You might not find every specific piece you own, but most are close enough to use for outfit planning purposes. Here are just some of the choices for “black blazer”:
- The filters that help you narrow down your items really quickly
- How easy it is to upload your own photo and add details for individual items, which I did for a few things, like the black and white patterned blouse shown below. (I could have spent more time on photo editing but that part really didn’t matter to me.) As I mentioned, most of the time you can narrow it down to a close-enough item, for example the plaid pattern on my red button-down isn’t exactly the same as the one online, but when it pops up as an outfit choice for me I know exactly what item they mean.
- Your daily outfit suggestions incorporate the local weather (and yes, Canadian friends, you can set the temperature to show in degrees Celsius), and if you aren’t feeling any of your three options, you can edit one or more items in an outfit, or click “refresh” to get entirely new suggestions. Here’s an example of an outfit suggestion I loved and chose a little while ago!
- Capsules: these are fantastic, because you can specify items in your wardrobe to fit certain categories (I have “work”and “casual” capsules right now; some do it by season) and you can also put items in “storage” if you don’t want them included in current recommendations (maybe something has been borrowed and not returned, isn’t fitting properly right now, or is out of season).
Here’s a sample of some of the outfits Cladwell chose for me this month:
- You can also click on any item of clothing in your closet and get tons of ideas for what you can wear it with – perfect for those great individual pieces you have, but don’t know how to work into an outfit. Here are just a few of the choices I was given for my animal print blouse:
- There is a spot where Cladwell will show you recommended items to add to your closet with purchasing links, but this does not in any way dominate the app, and really just seems like a bonus for those who want that feature. I never feel like they’re trying to sell me more “stuff”.
- You can contact a real live stylist using Facebook messenger who can access your closet and answer any questions you may have. This is a feature I am really looking forward to trying out!
- There’s also a social aspect to the app where you can choose to follow other users’ closets and allow people to see your outfit choices – another feature I haven’t pursued much yet but I’ll get there!
My wishes:
- I would love to see an Android version sooner than later (it may be here about a year from now) but even though I can’t use Cladwell on my Samsung phone, I use it on my iPad, which is actually kind of nice because of the large screen.
- I want the app to realize that I *really* want to rotate my wardrobe – if I wore my bright blue pants on Monday, I definitely don’t want to see them in any recommendations for the rest of the week
- I wish I could get rid of an outfit I logged by accident – there’s supposed to be a button to undo it but I haven’t been able to make it work. Really, who cares, but I want my data to be as accurate as possible!
What it costs:
In Canada the price is about $6.75 per month, which I believe iTunes charges as one lump sum annual subscription. I have no doubt I’m saving more than this amount by wearing what’s in my closet instead of shopping for new clothing, and it’s a fun experience…exactly the kind of thing I’m going for! If you decide to do the free trial of Cladwell, I’d recommend starting on a day when you have time to fill your closet in order to maximize what you can get out of the app that week!
Please don’t hesitate to ask if you have any questions at all!
Disclosure: I was provided with a free subscription to Cladwell for review purposes. Opinions are, as always, my own.