Cladwell helps you pick out your clothes

As a true clotheshorse I love to lay out my outfits a week in advance and ensure that all of my sartorial choices are on, as it were, fleek. But not everyone has that skill or the time and those people should try Cladwell. Created by Blake Smith the app first tells you exactly what to buy – a selection of regular items that you can use forever – and then gives you permutations that work for every situation.

The company came about when Smith discovered that he felt better and performed better when he wore the right clothes for the situation.

“When I hit my mid-twenties I began to realize that my appearance made a big difference on my effectiveness as an executive, so I asked my friend Chris Merchich to tell me what to buy / wear,” said Smith. “He assembled for me a capsule wardrobe of about 35 items and taught me how to style it. The average wardrobe is about 150 items, so this was incredible. I felt so much joy looking at my closet each morning, and confidence getting dressed. It was just remarkably superior to any experience I’d ever had with clothing before. I told him if he was a business he’d make a ton of money. And that was it – we started noodling on how to convert his knowledge and disposition into a scalable business.”

The primary goal is to reduce your wardrobe and then, like a bartender with a full bar, create things that work using every piece. The app considers the weather, the season, and current trends and recommends pieces as they get older and fall out of fashion.

The company raised $2.8 million from angels in the Midwest as well as 500 Startups. They launched their men’s app this week and they aim to be the noble fashion app. At this point the recommendation service costs a few dollars per month in an effort to prevent the endless problem of how to monetize apps like this one.

“Everybody else tries to monetize with ads, affiliates, drop shipping, or wholesale. Because of that, there are certain problems they cannot solve, most importantly, the problem of ‘I have way too much clothing and nothing to wear.’ They can’t solve that because you can’t shop your way out of that problem.”