Let your phone organise your clothes

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Published Mar 30, 2015

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Washington – If you’ve been pledging to clean out your closet (or at least take stock of all the shoes, sweaters and shirts crammed in it) you can find help on your phone.

No, none of these apps will sort your unmatched socks, but if you want to get a sense of what you actually wear and how often, mix and match your outfits, or sell your items, here are a few to try:

Stylebook

Stylebook is the most comprehensive of virtual closets. Any (disorganized) sartorialist will find it helpful. Photograph your pieces and group them into categories, tag them by price, combine them into outfits and even assign them to days on a calendar.

Creating outfits is the most fun feature of this app - after you remove the background from the photos of each item, you can resize and layer them on top of one another to make a photo of the entire ensemble. The result is a magazine-style image that features your own clothing. Stylebook also has a spot to store your measurements and sizes, and a place to keep snapshots of photos from around the Web or your own camera roll for inspiration.

The app has all the bells and whistles for the fashion inclined, but is likely not worth the price tag if you don’t spend serious time considering your outfits each morning.

Stats:

Cost: $3.99

Operating system: iOS.

User Ratings: Apple: 4 out of 5 stars (900 ratings)

Pureple

Another closet organizer, Pureple also lets you take photos of your items, remove the background and build outfits. You can categorize and tag items, and add them to a calendar or packing list. The practical tag suggestions are great: season, occasion, color; or in need of cleaning, altering or mending.

Like the Stylebook app, this one lives up to its price: It’s free but has shortfalls. The tool that removes the background from your photos isn’t very precise. The more contrast between the background and the color of your item, the better the result will be. You cannot add multiple pictures at once into a category, and adding one at a time gets pretty tedious. Once you put something in a category it cannot be moved, and the only way to fix it is to retake the picture and start over. In time, this app could stand up to Stylebook, but it needs a redesign.

Cost: Free

Operating system: iOS

User Ratings: Apple: 4 1/1 out of 5 stars (176 ratings)

Vinted

This app helps you let go of what’s hogging prime closet space - and if you want, refill that space with items you actually want to wear. Vinted is a marketplace to buy, sell and swap used clothing; the site claims 2 million monthly users.Snap a photo and add a description to the shirt you want to toss. Set a price and wait for a bid. You can chat with interested buyers and negotiate a price. You can also agree to swap items with another Vinted user. When a deal is done, print a shipping label and send the item on its way. You’ll be paid when the item arrives at its destination.

On the buying side, not only is there a search function, Vinted users can build a Pinterest-board style feed to help them filter items for the sizes and brands they’re interested in.

This app takes the hassle out of bringing used clothing to a resale shop such as Buffalo Exchange, and lets you set your own price, both great reasons to give it a try. Keep in mind that there’s a good chance your item won’t catch anyone’s eye, though.

Cost: Free

Operating system: iOS, Android

User Ratings: Apple 4 1/2 out of 5 stars (4,429 ratings), Android Apple 4 1/2 out of 5 stars (18,327 ratings)

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