How I Tried My Wishlist with AI

A Substitute for Shopping IRL - Of Sorts

To be honest, this sale season has been overwhelming for me. There are so many good sales - Tibi, Leset, Donni, Tory Burch, Rachel Comey. There are many brands I’ve been interested in trying - Dissh, Simon Miller - or perusing The RealReal, inspired by Indre Vilt. I have seen a lot of beautiful things recently, including this shoe that is shaping up to be the shoe of the summer. I also want to venture more into color with my shopping. Or perhaps I should just save and buy that elusive Crispy Nylon Liam from Tibi? Or maybe I should fix my posture first and try out the posture-correcting bra instead of the new stuff? I feel like shopping, but I also want to get the best of everything, which means analyzing everything and finding the best, most suitable piece for my limited resources. Just writing that sounds stressful.

Since many pieces I was eyeing were online, with limited possibilities to try them on, I decided to use AI. I took a photo of myself in yellow Calders, uploaded it to Google Gemini, and uploaded the photo of the piece I wanted to try. The prompt was quite simple: “Put these pants on me.” That’s it.

Now, AI is getting better, but it is still not ideal. It usually misses the subtle nuances of design, such as the slight barrel leg of the cult Leset Kyoto pant. It can ignore your body, “slim” you, or add additional background and interior details that are completely irrelevant. Like a lazy intern, AI gets tired after 5–6 generations and starts generating random things - you need to kick off a new chat and start generating again.

Still, I found it quite useful for a quick try-on - to get a feel for the look, as well as the color and pattern. So here is what I “tried.”

Samsoe Samsoe dress. My first wishlist piece was a semi-casual but also business-appropriate dress. I tried this one from Samsoe Samsoe, and once I saw it on me, I realized the color washed me out quite a bit, so it became an easy skip.

Daria Deh dress. I vaguely remember that someone I really respect in the industry mentioned that this brand is of very high quality. They also offer full transparency in terms of their costs and margins, which is interesting. Most of their designs are fairly basic to my Tibi-trained eye, but I loved this dress - both the color and the rich material.

Tibi Tunic. As I was trying the pieces on, I decided to try pieces that I had already actually tried in real life - to see how accurate AI would be. It was fairly accurate with this bonded tunic, which is my number one sale item - although unfortunately it is not on sale. So far, so good.

Tibi Gingham jacket and skirt. Another one I tried IRL was this gingham set, and here AI did make me taller, slimmer, and for some reason removed my shoes. I’d say the piece lost a lot of its magic in AI, but nevertheless, the pattern held up.

Tibi Compact Ultra Stretch Skirt. Another Tibi wishlist item that is not on sale. I think here AI did the piece a disservice - I believe the actual material looks much more luxurious.

Tibi Ultra Light Silk Tencel Top. Now this is yet another piece that is not on sale, and let’s just say AI smoothed my curves quite a bit here. Still, the color is divine, and I’d love this piece if it hits sale at some point.

Tibi Nylon Snap Jogger. Thinking about how I need more color in my life, I decided to try these nylon sporty pants from Tibi. This is where AI really helped - while they look great on others, I find they do not look good on me at all. Is it something about my soft essence? I am sure Kibbe / Kitchener theories have an answer for that, and I am just happy I did not decide to buy them.

Tibi Liam Blazer. Finally, the Liam - here AI failed miserably. I believe when you are trained on the average of the internet, it is hard to imagine a pushed and oversized blazer. Nevertheless, I’ve tried Liam in person and know what to expect.

Simon Miller Pia pants. I then turned to Simon Miller pants. I crave colors and patterns this season, and the above pants were my choice. After trying them with AI, I had some second thoughts, so I decided to try some other options from this fun brand.

Simon Miller Pia pants. Still, cream and burgundy are probably best, maybe followed by orange? AI really illuminated how different colors can look and is very helpful here, in my humble opinion.

Dissh Lela skirts. I then remembered I do not have a good linen skirt, and thought of the Australian brand Dissh. To my surprise, it was also running a sale (it seems to be over by now) and was not as expensive as I remembered. Here AI really helped me choose the cream skirt over the white - but still, they are staying on the wishlist.

Dissh vest. The vest, though, is stunning - I did not expect that before “trying” it out. It moved up in my wishlist quite a bit.

Leset Kyoto pant. Leset is a cult brand and just recently released a summer collection that is, well, very summery - full of amazing colors. Within the cult brand Leset, there is a cult pant, Kyoto, and it has now been released in my favorite yellow. I tried it out and it looked really good - but the actual pant has a bit of a barrel vibe, which was quite ignored by AI.

J.Crew Luna Pant. As fashion Substack knows, there is a dupe of the Kyoto pant by J.Crew. I “tried” it out too, and it looked quite good. But again, there are the limitations of AI - I know that these pull-on waists don’t really sit so well on my waist, but in the AI try-on, there are no problems.

Leset May Collection. I tried on a big part of the Leset summer collection and some of their sale items. These colors are stunning and I loved many of the pieces, but I needed to talk myself out of purchasing, as for example, the green dress and the maxi pink skirt are likely to be too transparent on me. The standout try-ons from this batch? The short Barb silk skirt - it looks quite playful - and the Lauren pleated pants. Still, I did not pull the trigger on them.

Aritzia Interlock Script Top. I then found this Aritzia top and tried it on in various colors. It looks a bit worse with AI than in the real-life TikTok try-ons I found.

Aritzia Nominee Top. So did these Nominee tops from Aritzia - still on the fence about them.

I then ventured into The RealReal to try on some things from my obsessions (including Tory Burch bag, Jil Sander top, and Tod’s loafers), and the bag was by far the best (for some reason I am unable to link directly). Still, I need to prioritize ruthlessly.

Wandler bags. Finally, I went to try on the bags from my favorite bag brand, Wandler - and as usual, I want them all. But the standout from the try on was actually the Ida bag, which is also owned by Grace from Tibi and many fashion insiders. It looks really good.

Interestingly enough, Victoria Beckham already offers AI try-on directly on the site - you can go to the site, upload your picture, and see yourself in the dress. It is definitely interesting.

As usual, the best question when deciding what to buy for me has been: Will I wear it tomorrow, or at least for a concrete occasion? If not, the piece is likely too far from my daily lifestyle and therefore should not be purchased.

So what did I ultimately purchase? I bought the posture-correcting top from Forme Science (the brand previously gifted me socks which I liked and my Mom liked even more), the greenish Daria Deh dress, and two tops from COS to add to my daily rotation.

I am still on the fence about the others, so let’s see how the Tibi sale shapes up and whether there are more sale items I want to purchase. Hope your sale season has kicked off well - and we will all navigate it smoothly with ease and intention, with or without AI!

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