This article was published on March 28, 2008

RestyleMe is styling 2.0 and certainly not 3.0


RestyleMe is styling 2.0 and certainly not 3.0

Although Web 3.0 seems to be coming closer by the day, typical 2.0 initiatives are still launched on a daily bases. Just for the record, I follow Calacanis’ definition of Web 3.0: balancing the ‘wisdom of crowds’ by embracing experts. A good example is Topicle, a search community with a pool of small search engines that use the human intelligence of experts.

Goth girlSo I just registered to ReStyleme, a service that allows users to rate other users’ clothing style. What pleads for the ReStyleMe is that they don’t just offer a dull 1 to 10 rating system but actually make it possible to judge in detail. To be more specific, you can rate the hair style, body style (?), accessories, makeup, eye glasses, dental style, facial hair, clothing and tattoos. Moreover, it’s possible to pinpoint good and bad points on the picture. And of course, users can leave comments as well. Like this one, from DieWeissenRose about steph19812006:

You need to cheer up some! :) try straightening or curling your hair. Also wear clothes that are your size.

KillerStartUps is raving about this service in their review:

RestyleMe fills a gap for a website that’s specifically built for actually useful style advice. (..) It utilizes Web 2.0 features that makes it user-friendly and fun to provide or obtain style advice.

Yet you could also see their remark as negative. If you think about it: who wants a style advice based on the wisdom of the crowds? I mean, a business man might want to see if other business people dig his suit. And a goth teenager only cares about the dark view of other goths. ReStyleMe doesn’t offer this possibility. You can only sort the style results by age, geographical location and sex.

Moreover, if every body pays attention to the fashion sense of the majority, that would be disastrous for creativity. People would just adapt their style to the generally safe (= dull) judgments of Average Joe. So I hope ReStyleMe will soon create some more options to select opinions. Otherwise they’re just making the world a bit more gray.

Don’t agree with me? Express your anger here by giving me a thumbs down for my clothes.. or hair. Whatever you want.

Get the TNW newsletter

Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.