iPad Fashion Apps: Winners and Losers
Search for “fashion” in the iPad app store, and you get a dearth of options. Granted it's only been a week since the gadget hit store shelves — and caused some of the most cringe-inducing press photos of Apple freaks waiting in line for hours before lifting their new purchases over their heads like Simba from The Lion King.
Even Vogue’s Style.com app is actually the same as its iPhone version, grafted onto the iPad with no additional dazzling features. As for those apps designed especially for iPad, quality varies. Here's our introductory crib sheet of what to download and what to dismiss.
Shopping Apps: Gilt and Gap glisten
When Alexander McQueen jackets are 75 percent off, you don’t need a fancy, of-the-moment gizmo to get excited. Gilt Groupe’s free app, however, makes impulse purchases all the more dangerous. Maybe it’s the soft tapping of photos — instead of the incessant clickclickclick of a mouse — and an interface far more user-friendly than the traditional web format.
GILT GROUPE APP No-nonsense interface, images galore and easily navigable. (Evocative? not really, but who cares.)
My favorite members-only shopping sites like Ideeli seem to be late to the party (couldn’t find them during an app search). Gilt’s competition in the shopping sphere includes Net-a-Porter, but then again, it’s just Net's iPhone app, which appears about as tech-forward on the iPad as an Etch-a-Sketch.
As I mentioned in a blog post earlier this week, Gap has the best fashion app. I don’t like the ring of that, but it’s true, and it makes me want to buy their jeans. Push your finger in all directions on the free app and it looks like the content goes on forever — even though basically it’s on a loop, showing celebs shopping Gap, tweets from designer Patrick Robinson, video from Project Runway contestants styling the merchandise, etc. It doesn’t necessarily bother me that the content itself isn’t all that titillating. It just looks cool, and it’s enough to keep you playing with it for far too long.
CLOSING THE GAP Gaps' fashion app makes you forget how tedious a trip to an actual Gap can be.
The Gap app is actually centered on its 1969 premium jeans: In the women’s online store, there are 13 fits/styles starting at $59.50. They look great, though jeans shopping 101 mandates that any style need be tried on first before purchase. Not sure how the iPad is going to pass that hurdle. If you know what fits already, then it's not a problem.
The magazines: Glossier than ever, though a long way to go
I love the feel of a glossy, with its silky, matte finish. I thought I’d miss this when reading on the iPad. Not so. Fashion images are infinitely more vivid, the detail on a garment far more enticing. There aren’t yet many fashion and style magazines to be found, and the few currently online — surprise! — are geared towards men (Maxim, Men’s Health, Outside). Funny, because most of the tech-savvy people in my circles are women. You’d think Elle would at least come to the party.
Men’s Health has a free, abridged version of its same-as-it-ever-was print edition, which recycles cover lines (Fast Abs Plan!) on a yearly basis. Buying it costs $4.99, the same as what you’d pay on the newsstand, minus sales tax. This I don’t understand: The magazine saves plenty in printing costs, so for a real value-add, you’d think they’d ratchet down the price.
But the free version is really all you’ll need anyway. There’s a core workout, a recipe for chicken marsala, a hot chick and a photo spread of a basketball player midair on his way to a slam dunk. Most annoying are the interactive commercials for Gilette deodorant (for any of you still confounded by proper application of antiperspirant), mainly because there’s no diversity in the ads, so this one pops up on your screen every third or so page. Granted, it’s not as grating as the Axe “double pits to chesty” ad targeted to clueless dorm room freshmen.
WORK IT Men's Health sells for $5, but the free version is really all you need.