Style Workshop Week 5: Get Organized on Indyx
While some women were swooning over Josh in Clueless, we couldn’t stop thinking about Cher Horowitz’s digital wardrobe. If she managed to create one of the most iconic outfits in film history on a Windows 95 desktop computer, imagine what you could do with your wardrobe in your pocket!
This week, you’ll be creating your own digital wardrobe. Why now? With your style more clearly defined than ever, it’s time to take a fresh look at your existing wardrobe through that new lens. And, in order to do that, we have to first take inventory. You *could* do this the old-fashioned way, sorting through your physical wardrobe piece-by-piece, making a mess of your bedroom and leaving you with disorganized piles of clothes. But we think that a digital wardrobe makes this process much easier - and will continue to pay dividends over time.
If you’ve already go your closet cataloged on the Indyx app, congratulations! You can take a well-deserved week off. For the rest of us? Well, let’s roll up our sleeves and get started…
The Lesson
Why Do I Need A Digital Wardrobe App?
Let me paint a picture for you: you’re standing in front of your closet trying to get dressed and it is NOT going well. You have 5 minutes to get out the door and head to work, and absolutely nothing is working for you today. Sound familiar?
You’re starting off your day on a negative note, falling back on an outfit you’ve worn 10 times in the past month. It doesn’t make you feel particularly great, but it gets you out the door. With a digital wardrobe, your stressful morning routine would be replaced by the following benefits:
More Outfits
If you feel like you are always wearing the same pair of pants, it’s because you are. It’s hard to see all the options in your wardrobe when they are tightly hung in your closet or stashed away under your bed. The first thing a digital wardrobe offers you is visibility.
With a digital wardrobe, you can scroll through all the clothes you own - or more specifically, through your pants to find a different option for this week. You’ll never forget the sweaters you stashed in your garage, or the boots pushed to the back of your closet, because all your clothes will be easily accessible in one place.
Just like Cher, you can also style outfits directly in the app. But unlike Cher, who is chained to her desktop computer, you can do it from anywhere! Inspiration strikes in line at the coffee shop? Simply pull out your phone. All the new outfits you create can be saved for later inspiration when you’re in a rush or lacking ideas. This feature also makes it easier to style items that you would never otherwise put together, because you can quickly switch out different pieces and try virtually - pun intended - every combination in your wardrobe. A digital wardrobe unlocks the full potential of your physical wardrobe.
And, you won’t be the only person working on new outfits for your wardrobe. On Indyx, a real human stylist can help you create fresh combinations, which is a perk that no other app offers.
More Wear, and More Style
When you find yourself frustrated with nothing to wear, what is the obvious solution? New clothes. You need to freshen up your wardrobe, make it feel exciting. Right? Wrong. Save your money, save the planet, and simply wear your clothes - but with a fresh perspective.
With more outfit ideas, you’ll wear more of the clothes you already own without feeling like you’re always wearing the same thing. You can even keep track of how often you're wearing each item and calculate its cost-per-wear. Given that information, you can try your hand at styling the items that are being underused, or ask your stylist to help you out. If you ultimately realize the piece doesn’t compliment your style, you can resell those pieces in the built in Indyx Resale Marketplace. You’ll end up with a wardrobe made up only of items you actually wear, freeing up much-needed space - both physically and mentally.
More Time
Instead of wasting time physically trying on different outfits, with a virtual wardrobe you can ‘outfit prep’ for a whole week in the time it would take you to try on a single look.
Have some free time at the salon? Or, simply dual-screening while watching some mindless Netflix? You can style all the outfits you need for the coming week in one fell swoop.
Additionally, because Indyx has a resale platform built right in, when it’s inevitably time to move on from some items, you can list it for sale with just a few clicks. This is a *huge* timesaver versus the same effort required to list on Poshmark or Depop - cataloging your wardrobe now is certainly a time investment, but it is one that will pay off many times over before you ever go to sell.
Less Regret
Considering buying something new but you’re unsure if it fits into your wardrobe? Whether you’re shopping online, in person or on our Marketplace, you can easily test it out in your digital wardrobe. We like the three outfit rule: make sure you can easily style at least three outfits with the new item before clicking “checkout”. Never again will you feel the pang of regret for the turquoise chevron-print dress you bought in 2013 that, despite matching nothing else in your closet, you were sure you’d wear *all* the time.
Less Stress
Given all of these solutions, a digital wardrobe’s main impact on your life is reducing your stress. The Calm and Headspace apps might give you some temporary zen but they’re not going to change the fact that you don’t know what to wear every morning. Indyx can.
You might be thinking “Why are you still trying to convince us when you had me at “Cher’s digital wardrobe”! We’re glad to hear it - so let’s really get started.
The Homework
This week’s homework is to catalog your wardrobe on Indyx. For those embarking on the process, note that this is a somewhat physical task that will take at least a few hours, depending on the size of your wardrobe.
The good news is that this might be the only homework assignment you’ve ever been given where you’re allowed to cheat - encouraged, even!
If you live in New York City, the SF Bay Area, or Southern California (including Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Diego!) then you have the option of booking our white-glove service - The Catalog - and getting it done in a snap. If this is of interest, you can schedule an appointment by navigating in the app to Services > The Catalog.
If you’ve chosen the DIY route, we’ll share a few quick tips for the best images.
Always shoot flatlays
Trust us, we’ve tried it all. Items consistently look their best when laid flat on any surface (we use the floor!) and photographed directly from above. The one exception to this rule are shoes, which should be placed standing on a flat surface and photographed straight-on from the side (our preference is for toes to face left).
Position items on their own, and as they appear on the body
Remember: the end goal is to scroll a wardrobe that looks like your stuff, and style outfits that give you a good idea of how that outfit would look on you. So, it is best to photograph your items on their own - no hangers! - and positioned as best you can to appear how they look when worn.
For example, you wouldn’t go walking around all day with your arms stuck straight out away from your body - you generally keep your arms tucked in next to you. So, do the same when positioning your long sleeve tops and sweaters.
This might also mean tucking, folding, or draping certain items to appear more true-to-life. For example, if you stretch a flare maxi skirt completely flat it will look much wider than it does draped on your body. It’s okay to gently drape the front into ‘pleats’ so that the overall silhouette is more slimmed in, like how it looks when you wear it.
Last thing here: be mindful of wrinkles! Our photo processing software is great, but it isn’t magic. If an item is overly wrinkled, consider pausing to steam or iron it before cataloging so that it looks its best.
Indirect, natural light is best
Items photograph most true-to-life when photographed in natural, but indirect light. Artificial light can distort some colors, and direct sunlight can cast distracting shadows.
So, we recommend shooting in the daytime near a large window, and with your overhead lights turned off. But, if this isn’t possible for you - don’t sweat it!
If you’re interested in diving deeper into cataloging, we recommend our prior blog post on our top tips & tricks.
Why does this matter?
Isn’t the point just to get the items into my digital wardrobe? Why do you care so much about how I do it? Three reasons why you’ll thank yourself later for taking the time to make your digital wardrobe not just functional, but also beautiful:
Re-discovery: You will have more appreciation for what you already own (and be motivated to wear it more!) when the image in your digital wardrobe is visually appealing.
Styling: You might not be the only one looking at these photos! It makes it so much easier and more productive for our stylists when they are able to understand your items through clear, well-shot images.
Resale: This will also be the hero image if you choose to resell any of your items, and we do hold our resale platform images to a minimum visual standard to be listed. A better image provides an elevated shopping experience for buyers, which means a quicker and higher-priced sale for you.
Ways to speed up the process
Now that you understand the basics of good cataloging, what are our best tips to be most efficient in what you’re doing?
Go category-by-category
It’s easier to get into a groove and move faster by photographing all of the same type of item at once - e.g., all shoes, all tops, all jeans, etc. This also makes it easier to break up the process into a few sessions by accomplishing one category at a time.
Take photos in bulk
This is up to personal preference, but some people find it faster and easier to take all their photos at once with their normal phone camera app, and then upload them to Indyx as a separate step later. This way, you can get all the physical work out of the way as quickly as possible, and sit back on the couch with a glass of wine while you upload.
Leverage online product photos
Many online retailers now provide professional flat lay images as part of their product listings. If you are able to find these easily - especially for recently purchased items - this can be a good shortcut. Simply screenshot or save them to your phone and upload them to Indyx from your camera roll.
However, if a flatlay isn’t available, please do not be tempted to use an on-model image instead! This will make your digital wardrobe appear messy and overly commercial. In this case, we think it’s better to flatlay yourself.
The last time we’ll say it: the best way to speed up the process is to hire one of our Archivists through our service called The Catalog to come to your home and get you started. We’ll have 100 items professionally done for you in just a few hours!
If you know that you just don’t have the time right now to catalog everything in your wardrobe, then it’s fine to start with just a portion. Check out the blog post linked below for Yidi’s tips on how to prioritize.
Why should I catalog now, when I’m about to purge my closet?
If you think you’re not quite ready to get cataloged because you need to clean out your wardrobe, let us explain why we reserve that step for the following week.
First: why not tackle both at once? If you’re already sure that something should go, then the cataloging process gives you a good prompt to start building that "edited out” pile. A good rule of thumb is that if you’re hesitating on whether it’s worth the two minutes you’d spend digitally cataloging it, then that’s a pretty solid sign that it doesn’t deserve a spot in your real closet, either.
But for those “maybe”s that you hem and haw over, digitizing them as an intermediate step can actually help you make the best decisions about what to keep.
After cataloging your “maybe”s, you’ll have the visibility to see each of them in context of your larger digital catalog. If you’re unsure, you can try styling it with other pieces or have a stylist weigh in. Additionally, you’ll be able to organize your clothes into virtual piles of what to keep, donate and resell which keeps your floor free of clothes.
Indyx is designed to facilitate the process of assessing your assets but you need to have them cataloged first to reap those benefits.
Until next week…
Found yourself here without being signed up for the Style Workshop?
Obviously, we’re giving away this awesome content for free.
But, sign up for this experience in our app and you’ll get this 8-week course conveniently emailed to you at our recommended cadence to help keep you accountable.