I don’t have a great fashion sense. Usually I just relay on my female friends to tell me what to wear. But with the release of OpenAI Vision API, I was thinking I could get rid of some friends with benefits(?) and build my own AI fahion assistant.

I started prompting the ChatGPT web interface about my looks to get a sense on how good is it with fashion advice. It did remarkably well, and so I went ahead with my idea.

I chose React Native for building the UI (I wanted to make it available on both iOS and Android), and Firebase for storing data, running tasks and interacting with the Vision API.

Stylist Persona

It was clear to me that the stylist can’t just be a static, bland persona. Prompting the model is versatile, so I decided to give the user the ability to change the critic level and persona of their reviewer.

I played with some persona types, but the funniest one was Donald Trump: the model was surprisingly accurate mimicking his tone, and was really nasty when I asked it be critical. Unfortunately, I worried using his name might put me in trouble, so I removed the option before the public release.

Once the user took a picture, the review options showed up, which I designed to look similar to Instagram filters. Adding the various animations was straightforward using the built in layout animation provided by Reanimated.

One UX issue I experienced was the time it took the model to analyze the image, which was around 10 seconds - a lifetime for a mobile user to wait.
I tried to go around it by providing a fun loading screen for the review, including a personalized random quote for the chosen persona type.

The Review

The review screen is composed of 3 sections - the outfit image together with the review verdict, an overview of the outfit and number of suggestions for improvements. Ecah review point contains the related emoji, generated by the model, and a short description.

I also added an option to share the review, which is the outfit picture and the review highlights.

Testing out in the wild

I was lucky to be staying in a hostel full of young people at the time of the app release. I gave it to them to try it out, and it became a hit party game. Taking pictures of each other and laughing at the reviews while drunk.

Conclusion

I don’t have big ambitions for this app, it was mostly a fun way to try out a new technology. I learned a lot about the Vision API and how to work with it. I also learned that I should never trust the AI with my fashion sense - it’s still pretty bad. At least I got rid of some friends.

You can try Stylist on the App Store.