App Review: DressMyHorse

As a founding member of a tack ho cult, I place a very high priority on outfit selection. Thus, when Horse & Hound did a write up the of the "DressMyHorse" app, I promptly mocked T for downloading it, then downloaded it myself to play with.

Full disclosure: it is a free app. I also got it for free. (Noted: search your app store for DressMyHorse with no spaces. Searching for Dress My Horse gets you some very bizarre results).

This app purports to allow you to try different looks on your horse without actually buying them. In theory, it's a boon for people like me who are HORRIBLE at visualizing the outcome of outfits.

In practice, it's SUPER IMPORTANT to remember that LIGHTING MATTERS.

To use this app most effectively, you really need a left side photo of your horse looking straight ahead. Zoe likes to look at me, so my photos are slightly skewed.

There are several manufacturer collections of outfits uploaded to this app. You can scroll through the available items, select what you want to try on, then upload it to the image of your horse (or several boring stock image horses) and voila! Well, not quite "voila" yet. You have the option to rotate and resize the different pieces to get them to match your horse's photo shape.

look book previews

Plus, once you put together an outfit that you like, you can save it to your "lookbook" and/or camera roll to discuss with your friends.

rotating and resizing the tiny boots is hard, ok? stop judging me

From the look book, you can send images directly to your friends and add items to an online wish list.

The actual operation of the app is a bit slow and clunky. Things take a bit to load and it's really hard to move boots around on tiny horse legs because your fingers are covering everything. That said, once you resize a certain collection, it seems to save the settings. 

For example, I dressed Zoe in LE Mieux Apparel:

fanceh

But then every time I did a different Le Mieux outfit, it automatically put the polos on like that. It's not perfect, but it's good enough to give you an idea of how it will show up. 

Now the real question: how does this pan out in real life? I actually have access to two of the outfits I put Zoe in (because tack ho), so let's look at them side-by-side from look book and real life:

Benetton blue Le Mieux and white boots

annnnnd IRL

And the plum set!

Plum Le Mieux set

you'd never know i took both pics #fail

So I mean. It's not perfect. But the more I play with it, the more I enjoy it. It's super fun to try to put looks together and try things on. I thought I would hate it and instead I've spent waaaaay too much time on it.

To be more useful, this app needs access to more than just a couple fall lines, but if you want to entertain yourself for a slow hour on the cheap, it's fine. I wouldn't pay money for it, but it's fun to goof around with.

In terms of "does this app actually accomplish it's purpose", well, if the purpose was to convince me that Zoe NEEDS a peacock Le Mieux set AND shiny pink open fronts with an outrageous pad?

Yup, it totally worked.