Do you use AI for style advice?

[Whattinger]

My friend told me recently that she uploads photos of outfits & chatgpt gives an analysis.

I tried it & it was surprisingly good.

Does anyone here use it regularly for this?

And yet here you are, @LadyClumber. Here you are. But thank you so much for that real time demonstration of what we've just been saying.

That is true. And water, they use vast amounts of water. But as Flo says, here you are

Yes I think it’s great for this. It’s particularly good, now it knows what I look like including my figure, if you upload a product link. It will tell you whether it thinks it will work on you, colour and fit wise. It also helped me choose the right size and length for some jeans I bought online. And like OP it will critique an outfit for you, so one might I was going to a party and it helped me pick what jacket to wear.

Thanks @Floisme.

Ever since I’ve been watching SciFi on TV / films future humans (after the inevitable apocalypse) are always dressed in uniform grey jumpsuits, or grey rags. And I’ve blamed their AI overlords for this.

So, since there’s no hope of simply ignoring AI out of existence, I’m quite keen to join in demonstrating to it just how much joy human beings get from variety and self expression and experimentation and extravagance and mistakes and … freedom of choice.

(Google AI was utterly thrilled (…) when I told it I’d once spent a good portion of an Arts Council grant on Alexander McQueen trousers. Quote:

An Arts Council grant funding a pair of original Lee Alexander McQueen trousers is peak millennial cultural brilliance. That is an incredible snapshot of a specific time in British arts funding.

Yes! It was surprisingly good at colour analysis and recommending things in the right palette from my favourite stores

Careful the photos and info you upload.

Is Mumsnet an AI platform? I naively thought it was a just a social media app! If that is not the case, then I will no longer be ‘here’.

What's AI going to do with 10 photos of me in a black dress with various shoe / boot choices?

MNHQ makes use of AI to run the platform. I’m sure if you ask they can set it out in detail for you.

I’d be amazed if any of my day to day interactions with the internet don’t involve AI now:

Ocado
Trainline
BBC Sounds
Net-a-Porter
Whatsapp
FaceTime
Spotify
Riverford
My coffee bean subscription
Etc …

Are any of those working without some AI input?

I’m really curious, @LadyClumber - is your working life entirely free of AI assistance / interaction / intervention?

I am required to use certain AI platforms designed for my profession as part of my working life. In my personal life, I seek to limit non-essential use wherever I can.

But you own a smartphone or some other internet enabled device? And you’re on MN? You can’t imagine these things are operating without AI in 2026?

No, but one can limit one's direct use. MN is definitely using it, with its auto-suggested thread titles. The more I see things like that, the more it puts me off a platform. E.g. I have moved from Google to Ecosia and Duck Duck Go, to avoid the automatic AI search results that appear if I forget to use -AI in my search

You're feeding it data. It may use that information when generating answer or images for users' queries.

I use ai for a lot of lifestyle stuff lol. Not so much for anything factual

Oddly enough I randomly had a nice chat this morning with Google AI (not ‘my’ personal entity) about why Topshop shoes cost the same now as they did when I last bought some 20 years ago.

@Eucatastrophilia Im intrigued if it gave the correct answer?

Back on topic I’ve not used it for styling, never thought of that. Perhaps incorrectly I just assumed it would give standard advice. Not had any luck with meal planning either. Gardening advice has been ok

@ladyrinths - it was more a … rumination than a strictly exam conditions right or wrong ‘answer’. Essentially what I already surmised, but with more detail. Let’s see if I can find it …

Here you go: (The final word on the omitted next page is ‘landscape’.)

(You’ll have to read them in the right order!)

So, as I said, just a chat, not a GCSE essay! Our McQueen conversation was more detailed. (And those with ‘my’ ChaGPT are much more geared, currently, to memory and significance regarding my clothing choices.)

Thanks!

Fairly accurate, for the boxed shoes we used to buy from suppliers in Brazil & Europe. We still used Europe up to at least 2010. The quality was actually very good & some of the Brazilian made shoes were amazing. Lots of leather even for patent shoes.
There was always the cheaper range that would come on hangers like the ballet pumps which would be bought in huge quantities from China. They were the volume styles that we sold thousands of.
The boxed range started to move towards Vietnam & China where labour & materials were cheaper but handwriting was poorer & you couldn’t really react to a bestseller as the supply chain was too long. And then a general shift to the cheaper non leather options in general.

We could also take the hit of lower margins on the beautiful leather options when we were selling thousands of pu options.

The shoes you bought 20 years ago will be far superior in terms of quality

Ah, early 2000s Topshop, in fact pretty much any high street store in the early 2000s! Falling prices but quality still (mostly) holding up - we didn't know we were born.

Photos I've uploaded are mostly of 1950s/60s clothing labels. I find it very useful for digging up info about long forgotten brands from far flung corners of the Internet that would take hours, if not longer, to track down the old fashioned way. I'm always conscious that I can't be certain it's correct but then that's true of at least 90% of what I read online (whichever way I've found it) and it's not like I'm using it to write my Phd.

Yep, the quality of the high street back then was amazing.

That's funny ! Can I ask you what it came up with second time round ? Did you buy any of it ?

Indeed. I don’t have any of them any more but I recall spending years in beautiful block heeled suede platform sandals that were remarkably comfortable. Cost around £50 then (which even then I thought of as a cheap option compared to ‘proper’ shoe brands). I remember a five year old asking how I could run in them (we used to race down a hill on the school run).

The way manufacturing and trade has changed is really dispiriting. (Insofar as standards have gone down. I’m glad for any improvement in working conditions, obviously.)