You hear a song on the radio and you want to know the name of it — you can use Shazam to find that out. Now you can do the same thing if you see an outfit you like on TV, thanks to an app called Spylight.
As reported by the Daily Beast, Spylight is a Los Angeles-based startup that helps viewers use their iPhones or iPads to identify outfits (or similar matches) worn by characters on television shows and in movies. The company presently houses a massive archival website that catalogs more than 99 shows and movies as well as hosts a fashion blog; this month on the iTunes App Store, Spylight is launching an audio-syncing app.
“[The app] listens to the audio of shows or movies as you’re watching them, then shows the exact products featured on screen at that moment," Spylight COO Aly Moore told the Daily Beast. "[It’s] a bit like Shazam, but for fashion."
Working with film and television studios, Spylight gathers information about character outfits prior to programs airing. The company is also focused on offering affordable alternatives to what could be highly expensive clothing shown on screen.
Fairly unique to Spylight, in addition to its collaborative partnerships, is the fact that 80 percent of its staff is women — an unusual statistic in the startup world. The Daily Beast points out that both fans and designers alike can benefit from the app: fans through a new form of interaction, and designers through a new marketing stream.
“I think from the beginning, the studios and networks recognized that we provide a new kind of engagement and monetization platform, and that only truly obsessed fashion geeks, like us, could really nail the job," Moore said.
