Craves Helps Regular Shoppers Style Like Celebrities

Sure, most of us want to dress as much like our favorite celebrity as possible, but matching the sartorial choices of people who employ armies of stylists is not an easy thing to do. You could pay the Kardashians to tell you how to dress on their app, but what if your goal is to be styled like Taylor Swift?

Well for you — and all the other customers in the world with a hankering to add more celebrity wow factor to their clothing — there is Craves.

Craves is a mobile fashion application that uses visual search technology to identify what the rich and famous are wearing for outfits and accessories, and then tells the consumer where to go out and get one of their own. Or, for those who lack an A lister’s budget, the app also points shoppers in the direction of similar looks for less money.

Craves’ visual search can be used on anyone – celebrities are a likely target, but a well-dressed stranger on the street can have their style searched as well. The technology comes care of Crave’s parent company, Slyce.

“Every time a celebrity outfit was submitted to the app, engagement was off-the-charts,”Slyce President Ted Mann said. “So we rebuilt Craves around this insight,” he noted, explaining that once Craves was out there, users immediately were drawn to one kind of look: celebrity fashion.

Apart from snapping and going, Craves also lets users follow favorite celebs and get notifications when a new suggestion for an outfit or accessory pops up. As of the app’s launch, consumers can pick through 35 celebrity closets, including those of Kendall Jenner, Victoria Beckham, Kim Kardashian, Gigi Hadid, Demi Lovato and Taylor Swift.

“Users can snap a photo from any magazine, screenshot from Instagram, or even take a picture of someone they see on TV. Craves will identify the clothing or accessories in the photo,” explains Craves co-founder Scott Cormier of how the app works.

Craves is in its early days — it doesn’t generate a ranking on App Annie yet, meaning it doesn’t have a lot penetration as of yet.

But the technology has one high mark, especially in its “find similar fashion feature” that tries to match a particular piece of celebrity styling with a lower-cost option.