Review: Snap Fashion

Technology in fashion is an area that really fascinates me, bringing together two of my favourite things and smushing them together to create something that you didn’t know you needed. Bringing together two areas that are seen as very gender divided is quite a hot topic at the moment as well, with this article on BBC News highlighting a campaign I was previously unaware of called Lady Geek. (I read the BBC article on Friday, ordered the “Little Miss Geek“* book off Amazon straight away and it arrived on Saturday directly from Lady Geek with a handwritten note thanking me for my purchase. ) It was also Ada Lovelace Day yesterday, which I always seem to miss to post about women in technology.

All this in a roundabout way brings me to Snap Fashion. Snap Fashion was created by Jenny Griffiths, who studied computer science at the University of Bristol. She created the site (and the app) when struggling to find high street versions of higher end looks on a student budget – something we’ve all done (and still do…).

It’s kind of brilliant. You just take an image on your computer and upload to the website, or take a photo of the item with the app, tell it what you’re looking at (a dress, a mini skirt, some trainers) and Snap Fashion then searches through hundreds of retailers to find the closest match. The app allows you to save your searches for later, and can direct you to the website to buy the item.

The problem with most sites and apps that find items based on a description is that they are usually US based – it’s always so annoying to fall in love with a dress and find the retailer doesn’t ship to the UK! – but Snap Fashion has a huge list of UK based retailers. The site and the app aren’t just useful though, they’re well designed – the look is so clean but colourful, it’s pretty obvious what to do!

You can find the Snap Fashion* app here (iPhone only) or use the website, snapfashion.co.uk.