In the past, if you saw a celebrity wearing an adorable outfit, it was a lost cause trying to relocate it to wear yourself. Today, all you need to do is snap a photo of the item—or the entire outfit—and AI scanning technology will help you locate similar styles across the internet. Sometimes you can even match the exact piece!
Grab your mobile phone and check out this list of outfit-finder apps to help you find clothes from a picture.
1. Google Lens
Google’s Lens image recognition tool can identify clothes, personal accessories like necklaces, or any other form of apparel. This makes it an easy way to find a shirt you saw around town. You don’t even have to capture a picture to use it. Simply bring the piece of clothing into the viewfinder’s frame and if successfully matched, Google Lens will highlight it with a little blue icon.
After tapping this circle, the app will pull up a Google Shopping page (which itself is an aggregation platform). This provides you with links to multiple websites, such as Amazon and Walmart, for easy purchasing. In addition, Google Lens works with outfits. So, when you scan another person’s look, it will individually detect all the products they’re wearing.
Google Lens is available as a standalone app on Android, or via the Google app on iPhone. While there are Google Lens alternatives, none are as powerful as the real thing.
Google’s Lens image recognition tool can identify clothes, personal accessories like necklaces, or any other form of apparel. This makes it an easy way to find a shirt you saw around town. You don’t even have to capture a picture to use it. Simply bring the piece of clothing into the viewfinder’s frame and if successfully matched, Google Lens will highlight it with a little blue icon.
After tapping this circle, the app will pull up a Google Shopping page (which itself is an aggregation platform). This provides you with links to multiple websites, such as Amazon and Walmart, for easy purchasing. In addition, Google Lens works with outfits. So, when you scan another person’s look, it will individually detect all the products they’re wearing.
Google Lens is available as a standalone app on Android, or via the Google app on iPhone. While there are Google Lens alternatives, none are as powerful as the real thing.
2. CamFind
CamFind is a visual search engine platform that can find clothes from pictures. It’s one of the best fashion apps for Android and iPhone. The process is straightforward: take a picture, give its engine a couple of seconds to process, and you’ll see the outcome. It offers shopping links, the product’s description, and related YouTube videos.
You can share your results and browse what other people are looking up to understand fashion trends and connect with like-minded shoppers. Fortunately, there is a private mode in case you’re not comfortable with its community features.
CamFind is less reliable and a little slower than Google Lens but offers incredibly well-researched results when effective. CamFind also hosts some other amazing features like language translation, price comparisons, and even partners with Uber and Lyft to help you with any in-store shopping needs.
3. Amazon StyleSnap
Amazon’s main shopping app has a clothing-focused visual search engine as well, meaning you can find clothes just from a picture. You can access the option by touching the camera icon on the Amazon app’s search bar, then selecting StyleSnap.
When you tap it, the app will launch the camera view and you’ll need to direct it toward the object of clothing you want to scan. Alternatively, you can upload a picture from your phone’s gallery. If it’s found on Amazon, you can check out the recommended product listings. It will offer different selling options for each recognized piece of an outfit.
At the time of writing, Amazon StyleSnap is only available in certain regions.
4. Pinterest
Pinterest’s mobile apps feature a visual search tool called Lens that allows you to search the social network’s thousands of posts through images. Like Google Lens, this can ID multiple items, such as an entire outfit.
What’s more, Pinterest will show shopping links for matched products. For this functionality, Pinterest has partnered with ShopStyle, a fashion and lifestyle shopping platform. Hence, you won’t find links to Amazon or other commerce websites.
Pinterest Lens is most useful for obscure fashion pieces, which can be difficult to locate using other AI lenses. The app has been increasing its beauty community presence and you can even use Pinterest to try out new makeup virtually.
5. ASOS
British fashion retailer ASOS’s apps offer a straightforward reverse image search option called Style Match to find clothes with a photo. You can either capture a new photo or upload it from local storage. It only takes a few seconds to execute your query, and it’s accurate most of the time.
Once your image has been processed, the app will fetch ASOS styles that most resemble the one you’re looking for. This is a great way to stay fashionable on a budget. Unfortunately, the app only delivers search results on a per-item basis.
This app isn’t the best for brand recognition, but if you care more about the look and less about the company, ASOS is a great option. If you find something you like, you’ll be glad to know ASOS hosts 850 brands and delivers to 242 countries.
6. Lykdat
Lykdat is one of the most interesting tools for finding clothes from images. Unfortunately, Lykdat isn’t currently available as an app for either iPhone or Android. You have to use it in a web browser instead. The good news is, it’s easy enough to use this way.
Just load up the site and tap the Search icon at the bottom of the screen. Then, upload a photo or a few photos you’ve got saved on your phone (these can be images you’ve found in places like Instagram or Pinterest, or from your own gallery), crop into the part of the image you want to find, and the site will do the rest.
It’ll find you similar-looking products from stores around the web, with lots of filters to help you home in on exactly what you’re looking for. The results can be a little hit-and-miss, of course, but it’s well worth trying.
7. Use a Reverse Image Search App
If you haven’t had any luck through a clothes finder app, you should try a general reverse image app instead. While not as useful for figuring out your friend’s dress in her latest Instagram photo, there are plenty of great tools for searching general internet images.
These include CamFind (outlined above) and Photo Sherlock. We’ve covered both of these and more in our guide to the best reverse image search apps.
In these apps, you can upload a photo or use your camera and it will automatically search (e.g., with Bing, Google, and Yandex) to bring you a multitude of results. From there you can continue reverse image searching using associated photos or use the auto-generated search suggestions until you find the perfect match.
This isn’t the fastest or most reliable option, but still, a great option when working with pre-captured images.
Identify Clothes and More Using Your Phone
With an AI clothes finder, you’ll no longer have to roam around shopping malls with pictures of an outfit for reference. Thanks to these apps, you just need to pull out your phone and take a picture of your friend or the celebrity on the magazine cover to locate the perfect outfit.
Fashion is just the start. You can ID a lot more than pieces of clothing. Your phone can detect flower species, dogs, wine bottles, and more. If you’re interested in scanning the world around you, check out some apps to identify anything using your phone’s camera.
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