I'm an avid list-maker, I check the weather, my bank account and my investments daily. So when I got my iPad, I couldn't wait to download a bunch of apps that would help me keep track of even more things.

I started with keeping track of caloric intake and expenditures (see My New Favourite Pal) and thought it would be fun to get one of those apps where you can organize your entire closet, create outfits, etc. A few bucks and I’d be on my way to becoming chic, well-dressed and most importantly, even more organized!

To the app store!

Though I’ve had my iPad for some months, I’ve been humming and hawing about downloading a wardrobe app because it knew it was going to be labour intensive. A key step in the journey to complete closet organization is that you have to upload photos of everything you own.

After a bit of research online, I bought The Wardrobe Manager by PowerJab for 99 cents at iTunes. I figured if the app wasn’t good, at least this wasn’t a big price to pay.

Step one

First, take the photos. I had to find a clean, bright background so I could take pictures that accurately reflect the colour and shape of my clothing. I found the perfect spot in my hallway – a white wall in a brightly-lit area. I took the hanging pictures off their nails and found that the light sconce served as the perfect hook.

One by one, I started to take pictures of all my shoes, then all the pants, skirts, jackets, dresses and tops. I was planning on stopping there, but thought I’m in this deep I might as well keep going. I hung up all my sweaters and took pictures of those, and then went through the T-shirt drawer and did the same there. 

My blue-black dress

But before I raided the panty drawer I came to my senses and drew the line. I would only photograph clothing that would be seen in “public”, so no undergarments, no old sweatpants and no gym gear.

Of course, because I’d created quite the mess in my bedroom, everything that came out of the closets and drawers had to be folded properly and put back in. Some hours later (hours I’ll never get back) I had 162 photos saved on my iPad.

My tan boots

Step two

Now, time to upload all the photos into the app. But with the Wardrobe Manager, items can only fall into three categories: footwear, bottom wear and top wear. There’s no separate option for dresses so I decided to lump them into the top category. The process was slow and time consuming, as you have to tap each photo and place it into the right category.

Once everything is uploaded, you can ‘create’ outfits by scrolling through each category until you find pieces that look good together. You can also upload a photo of your face, to see what you look like in each outfit. Despite this initial time commitment, the theory is you’ll save time getting dressed later by having your outfits pre-planned.

My pleated skirt

99 cents and many hours later…

But the Wardrobe Manager isn’t everything I hoped it would be. And for 99 cents, perhaps you get what you pay for.

For one, I find it difficult to remove select photos. (An issue when you accidentally upload two identical photos or when you decide to get rid of wardrobe items.) A couple of times I thought I’d actually deleted everything as all columns appeared blank. I threw down the iPad in despair, only to return to it later to find all the photos miraculously, returned.

I would also like a few more categories – say sweaters, jackets and dresses. Lumping all tops together and having to scroll through each item can be onerous. Finally, the app itself is not very aesthetically pleasing, which is surprising considering the whole thing is about appearances! 

App screenshot

Simply seeing three photos all stacked up together isn’t going to be enough to get me on any best-dressed lists. But if there is one thing I’ve learned from this time-consuming, slightly inane exercise (besides the fact that I’m really good at wasting time on inane exercises), it’s that a lot of my clothing looks the same, especially when looking at it from the vantage point of a postage stamp-size photograph. It becomes very difficult to tell one black shirt from another and one pair of jeans from the next…something I’ll keep in mind the next time I’m shopping.

Please send me app suggestions!

Has anyone tried Pocket Closet or any others? If you have a better wardrobe app to recommend, I’d love to hear about it!

And don’t forget to check out our new wardrobe videos we’re trying out for a few season 3 episodes. Here are some of mine below:

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