Alright, let me tell you about this “index fashion” thing I worked on. It wasn’t some grand project, just something I hacked together for myself because, frankly, my closet was a mess. Like, seriously chaotic.
It started, as many things do, out of pure frustration. Every morning, same story. Staring into the abyss of clothes, feeling like I had nothing to wear, even though stuff was practically spilling out. Finding a specific shirt? Forget about it. It was eating up my time and honestly, stressing me out a bit. I thought, there has got to be a better way. I need to, like, index this stuff.
Getting Started – The Big Mess
So, one weekend, I decided to tackle it. Pulled everything out. Everything. Clothes piled up on the bed, on the floor… it looked like a clothing store exploded in my room. It was overwhelming. My first thought was just to take pictures of every single item.
- Pants
- Shirts
- Jackets
- Shoes
- Even belts and scarves
Taking photos turned out to be its own little nightmare. Just snapping pics with my phone looked rubbish. The lighting was terrible, colors were off. I ended up rigging a makeshift setup with a white bedsheet and messing with lamps trying to get decent, consistent shots. Took way longer than I expected. Felt like a whole day just doing that.
Trying to Organize the Chaos
Okay, so now I had a folder full of pictures. What next? A spreadsheet? Tried that first. Put in item type, color, brand maybe. But it felt clunky. Scrolling through rows and trying to visualize outfits wasn’t working. I looked at some apps, but they either cost money, had way too many features I didn’t need, or forced me into weird categories.
I thought, screw it, I’ll make my own thing. Nothing fancy, mind you. I know a tiny bit of web stuff from years ago, just messing around. So I figured, maybe I can just build simple web pages for myself, running locally on my computer. No internet needed, just for my eyes only.
Fired up a basic text editor. Started simple. Made an HTML page for ‘Tops’, one for ‘Bottoms’, ‘Outerwear’, etc. Inside each page, I just put the images I took and wrote a short description next to them. Like:
img src="blue_*" /> Blue Cotton Shirt - Casual, Summer
Yeah, super basic. I manually linked these pages together. It was like building a tiny, personal website from the stone age of the internet.
Making it Actually Useful (Sort Of)
Just having pages with pictures was better than nothing, but scrolling through dozens of shirts was still annoying. The key, I realized, was the ‘index’ part. Those little descriptions I added – ‘Casual’, ‘Summer’, ‘Blue’ – that was the key. I needed a way to filter by these tags.
Now, I’m no programmer, okay? I searched online for “simple javascript filter buttons” or something like that. Found some examples, mostly confusing. It was a lot of trial and error. Copying code snippets, changing bits, seeing if it worked. Mostly, it broke the page. Lots of refreshing, lots of “why isn’t this working?!”.
Eventually, after way too much coffee and frustration, I got some super simple buttons working. Click ‘Blue’, and somehow, magically (or through some hacked-together Javascript), only items I tagged as ‘Blue’ would show up. Click ‘Work’, only see the work clothes. It felt like a huge victory!
The Result: My Own Rough Index
So now I have this… thing. It’s a collection of local HTML files on my computer. It’s definitely not pretty. The code is probably horrifying to anyone who actually knows what they’re doing. But it works for me. It’s my personal fashion index.
I can quickly see all my sweaters, or find that one specific pair of pants I only wear for fancy dinners. It took a surprising amount of effort, way more than just tidying the closet normally would. But building this little system, even if it’s rough, feels kinda good. I tamed the chaos, my way. It might not be perfect, but it’s done, and it helps me get dressed faster. That’s a win in my book.
