Can AI be my Personal Stylist?
You hear about it everywhere and everyday - the rise of AI and how businesses are being asked to find innovative new ways to use it. I have heard of individual contributors in big organizations being asked to find AI use cases for their roles and we’re seeing how much it is changing our culture from social media creation to school systems. So it may not surprise you that as small business owners, stylists are now thinking about how to use AI as well. I try to focus my blog posts on what topics may be helpful for my clients and as this becomes a rising topic in the industry, I hope this helps you wrap your mind around what AI can and cannot help you with. Is it useful in building out your wardrobe? Can it help you identify a personal style? Can it be used instead of hiring a stylist? Let’s dive in!
CLIENTS AND THEIR STYLING NEEDS
First and foremost, I want to frame the conversation by letting you in on what clients come to stylists for! Clients typically seek stylists because they have a variety of wardrobe struggles, here, I will highlight just a few of the things I hear:
“I have a closet full of clothing but ‘nothing to wear’”
“I have too much in my closet and want fewer, but better pieces”
“I’ve had body changes and I don’t know what fits my new body”
“I am entering a new phase of life and I need help identifying a new style”
“I have an upcoming event and need outfit recommendations”
“I need help clearing out my closet of outdated or ill-fitting items”
“I need help packing “smart” for travel”
“I hate shopping or don’t have time to do it and want to offload the stress”
I name some of these because they show the variety of requests that stylists receive. In addition helping address these concerns, our ultimate goal is to help clients feel confident in their clothing, build wardrobes that make sense for their life and ultimately, teach them about shopping and dressing for themselves. In order to understand where AI can help, we need to understand the array of problems we help our clients solve.
can ai help me?
You’d be hard pressed these days to find a use case where AI is of NO help - that is the honest truth. The real question is, where and when is AI actually useful and what specifically can it help me with? In order to answer this question, I did a deep dive and played with ChatCPT myself.
I started with special events styling, as it is one of the requests that is pretty straight forward - typically, the client needs a few recommendations but will select one look. Because the problem is more focused (one specific day, one specific outfit, one set of criteria) I thought it would be a good candidate for an AI Chatbot. You can start by asking AI to serve up clothing options or stores to look at based on criteria.
This will work best if you have something specific in mind - for example, “I want a lavender cocktail dress under $150 that covers my shoulders and comes in a size M” OR “I have a wedding in Santa Barbara and need a pastel dress under $150”.
When you give very specific instructions to the agent, you actually may get some desirable results. This could be a helpful starting point if you are completely lost and may at least may point you in the right direction in terms of brands or silhouettes to start looking at.
Similarly, AI can be useful in helping you with a packing list. When I input the number of days, the location and my age, I got some pretty helpful advice on what to pack. And honestly, it doesn’t differ too much from what I might suggest for clients. Getting a quick list of packing ideas is actually helpful and it even comes up with some combinations that can be used as a jumping off point!
Another use case that could be helpful - especially for those inquiring about colors - is color matching! When you input an image of yourself and ask what colors look best, it does actually provide an output of your season and some colors that work well for you. As you can see below, it outlined my features from the photo and then provided some colors.
So if this is something you are dying to know, AI could be a great tool. And at the very least, it’s fun to get objective insight!
[SIDE NOTE] I don’t exactly agree with all of it’s analysis - while coral and oranges are favorite colors of mine, I actually think olive green makes me look sickly - especially in the winter. So while this was fun and somewhat useful, it doesn’t mean it’s 100% accurate.
PITFALLS OF AI
So while there are definitely some use cases that may be helpful, I also wanted to experiment with the limitations of AI. First off, let’s talk in-person appointments like Closet Edits and Clothing Reviews. As you might expect, many of the services that stylists provide are more beneficial when they are face-to-face. In a Closet Edit (which we can do virtually) valuable feedback is provided based on each individual body and each item of clothing. A lot of this work is subjective around whether something is outdated or ill-fitting. Can you code your AI agent to give you feedback based on criteria like “date of garment” or “size”? Sure, I suppose so! But the time it would take to build this level of intelligence is something most of my clients do not have. As mentioned above, time is one of the most scarce resources for my clients! Knocking out a Closet Edit in an hour is certainly more efficient than developing an AI tool.
Even when using an AI agent for the use-cases above, you will definitely encounter limitations! Let’s circle back to my prompt “I am going to a wedding in Santa Barbara and need a pastel colored dress that will fit a petite square body, budget is $150.” As you can see from the results in the images below, I didn’t exactly get “pastel” dresses and even got a white option (for wedding)! While I could continue to play around to get better results - my clients don’t have time. PLUS, they may event believe these are good suggestions - further putting them in a style rut! Overall, I am not impressed with the quality of options I am served - I cannot tell the legitimacy of the brands nor are the options really aligned with my personal style.
I think the biggest pitfall really has to do with personalization around fit and personal style - as demonstrated by the results of this prompt.
AI is not a replacement for the human eye and touch - there are nuances with fabric and bodies that make it almost impossible to gauge how something will work until you are seeing it real-time on someone’s body. As someone who has worked with over 250 clients at this point, I have seen such an array of body shapes, personal preferences, and garments, that my recommendations come with deep knowledge and experience.
And so even though it may be helpful to get started (maybe they will spark an idea!), I do find the suggestions to be pretty basic and generic. I would not have recommended any of those dresses to my clients if I were given that prompt.
The biggest takeaway in playing with AI is that “Personal Style” hasn’t been taken into account - and because personal style has to do with out self-image, preferences, cultural influences and more, it is too nuanced for a machine to understand. Additionally, it doesn’t have the level of personalization that working directly with a stylist would - while you can get a generic list of what to pack for a trip, it isn’t taking into account what currently exists in your wardrobe, how the items work together, the details around silhouettes and fabric, etc.
IMPLEMENTING AI INTO THE BUSINESS
As a business owner and Personal Stylist, how am I thinking about using AI? It is always my goal to adjust and improve my business to better serve my clients and so I’d be remiss if I didn’t use this AI opportunity to implement something that could be helpful. Also, being in the Silicon Valley and serving clients who largely work in tech, there is always a need to be on the cutting edge.
That said, exactly how to use the tool in my business is a work in progress.
I see so many potential opportunities - like using AI to surface outfits for my clients from their digital wardrobes or optimizing my online shopping processes to deliver recommendations to my clients more quickly (which would also save them money).
Stay tuned on what’s to come on this front!
IN CONCLUSION
AI is an ever-evolving space and rather than fight against it, I would like to be open and honest about how it can or can’t help my clients! When I ask the following to ChatGPT, I get the following:
“can AI replace a personal stylist?”
“AI can assist or supplement a personal stylist, but it's not yet a full replacement—especially when it comes to nuance, emotional intelligence, and individualized service.”
So there you have it, while AI may be a great starting place - especially if this service is cost-prohibative, there is no replacement for getting real human feedback around fit, personal style preferences and nuances about your life and the activities you dress for. We will continue to evaluate how it can enhance our services all in an effort to make the process of building a smart wardrobe that accommodates your life, easy and seamless.