This is a guest post from Joey Naeger, a bass luthier who lives with his wife in Houston, Texas.

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Several years ago, I realized I’d been dressing like a total putz. I got into weight lifting during the pandemic and was beginning to see some results in the mirror. Feeling proud of those results, I wanted to showcase my improved physique, while still being fully dressed. Suddenly, putting on an oversized T-shirt wasn’t the comforting, normal experience I was used to. Instead, I was looking in the mirror with horror and dismay as my barely visible muscles became obscured by this poorly fitting T-shirt. This had to change!

I started looking for new clothes, paying much more attention to fit than before. My newfound vanity had me thinking about clothing more than I probably ever had in my life. I started noticing how certain silhouettes looked on my body, how certain colors seemed to work better than others, and also that I just had an intrinsic draw towards certain things with no explanation.

It might sound odd to say, but the idea that I might think about clothing in terms of how it makes me feel rather than what function it served was completely new.

This new phase of figuring out how I want to dress has been a meandering journey with some unexpected twists along the way. Today, my style bears little resemblance to the conventional menswear I used to wear. These days, I’m incorporating a lot of traditionally female coded clothing in my looks such as skirts, leggings, hand bags, jewelry, crop tops, and makeup. This process was largely disorganized, following whatever new whims came my way. I’ve gone through phases, fixated on certain pieces, abandoned others, and racked up a fair number of flops along the way.

There’s also a complicated social layer to navigate for men looking to branch outside what’s considered conventional. I’ve had to think quite critically about how my clothing impacts others in ways I never considered. All of these things have made the simple question of what to wear feel a little more complicated. On one hand, I want to give myself the freedom to explore and express my innate sense of aesthetic. On the other, I’m a professional adult and need to function and look adequately presentable. I began to feel the need for some structure to my sartorial exploration.

This is where Indyx has come into my life. It’s an app designed to help you track your wardrobe. You can photograph garments and it automatically removes backgrounds, making it easy to build outfits from your own closet. Indyx also lets you assign outfits to your calendar and has other features like importing selfies (premium), tracking metrics of your clothing usage, a social Styling tool which allows other people to style outfits for you, and access to professional stylists within the app’s own platform. 

The following photos are screenshots from my own Indyx closet showing a pair of shorts being used in an outfit.

Why go through the effort? Why is this useful? 

There were a few areas I wanted to work on:

Impulsive Shopping

Any time inspiration hit, my first instinct was to buy something new.

Since using Indyx, I find myself being a bit more intentional with purchases, especially new items. Because I know everything will get logged into the app, I tend to think more critically about how it will fit into my whole wardrobe.

Before, if I saw a cute outfit on Pinterest, my first instinct would be to look at buying something just like in the photo. Now, I might browse through my Indyx closet instead to see if I can cobble together something similar. And when I can’t find anything, it helps me focus on what to look for when I’m shopping.

The image of the woman in flannel below is something I was able to copy using stuff from my own wardrobe, albeit with slight differences. 

Outfit Struggles

I’d often like items in the store, but had trouble building outfits around them.

One particular example for me is with a ruffled grey skirt I thrifted. The ruffles were completely foreign to me. Menswear simply doesn’t have that kind of detail or texture, and this made me feel particularly anxious wearing it. I was contemplating getting rid of it as I’d never managed to wear it outside the house. Instead, I challenged myself to assemble an outfit around this skirt using items I already had. Using the app, I loaded the skirt into a blank outfit and tried pairing it with all my tops. The flat lay images aren’t a perfect representation of how an outfit will actually look, but give a decent idea, especially since I’m familiar with the clothes. This process helped me narrow down combinations. 

With this particular skirt, I needed external validation. The ruffles were still giving me pause, so I enlisted help from members of the app’s accompanying Slack channel (premium member access).

With the social styling tool, a few people looked through my wardrobe and generously put together outfit suggestions based around that skirt.

Having some positive reinforcement from other users in the app gave me the last little nudge to actually wear the skirt. The end result is a really fun outfit that fits perfectly into my overall style.

Closet Accountability

I would frequently wear certain items repeatedly, only to forget about them after a month or two. I’ve also been bad about getting rid of clothes I no longer like or that fit poorly.

The very act of importing your wardrobe forces you to contend with all the clothing you actually have. I’ll admit I haven’t logged everything yet (do I really need to catalog my yardwork T-shirts?). But even partial logging has been eye-opening.

It’s allowed me to find items I’d forgotten about or haven’t worn in months.

With the app’s metrics, over time I got a sense of which items I actually wear – and which I don’t. It even tracks cost per wear if you input the initial price of clothes. In some instances, this meant getting rid of certain pieces. For example, this mint green cargo skirt in the image below is one that I really wanted to like, but it just isn’t a flattering shape for my body. 

Others, I had altered for a better fit. Others yet, pushed my comfort zone and needed some extra effort to style, like the ruffled skirt above The accountability of the app challenged me to figure out how to style those pieces in a way that made me feel confident. 

Stylistic Cohesion

My outfits felt scattered or inconsistent.

One of the most useful aspects of Indyx is the record it creates. After months of logging, I started to refine my sense of style. Looking back, some outfits stood out and others looked more like a flop.

Taking all that in helped me refine the “rules” that govern my  style. It’s like studying my own fashion archive. The app also lets users set their three style words. Currently, mine are androgynous, casual, and grunge.

When building new outfits, I can reference my “greatest hits” along with my style words and incorporate some of those elements into new outfits. This helps create a sense of cohesion.

Since my wardrobe already leans unconventional, that cohesion helps me avoid looking like I’m reinventing myself from scratch every day.

There’s more to the app than I’ve fully explored. One particularly fun feature is the social styling tool where other people can style my outfits using my closet right in their own web browser. This can be a great way to get fresh ideas. There are stylists I could hire through the app as well. Not something I’ve used, but might be useful for others. 

All in all, Indyx has been a great tool for me. Anyone embarking on a style change or just wanting to freshen up their style could benefit from using something like it. There are a few other wardrobe apps available such as Acloset, Whering, OpenWardrobe, and Cladwell. I haven’t explored these other apps, but they may fit your needs better. 

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Neither myself, nor this blog, are affiliated with or sponsored by Indyx in any way.