The Lab: The photo app that tells you what anyone's wearing

Guides to how to “get the look” of glamorous celebrities are a staple of fashion magazines - but an app, Snap Fashion, does it instantly, “reading” photos and finding similar clothes to buy online.

The “visual search” app is the brainchild of 25-year old computer science graduate, Jenny Griffiths, who discusses it this week in The Lab, a weekly video series made by Yahoo! and Sky, exploring the ideas of Britain’s brightest young inventors.

Griffiths was one of two women in her class of 30 at Bristol University - and coded the app herself in C++. It works either from photos or web links, “recognising” clothes and suggesting similar items from 170 online retailers.

“The idea for Snap Fashion came to me while I was at university studying computer science,” says Griffiths. “I’d always admired the designer looks in magazines, but struggled to source items on my  budget, so searching for images seemed like the most obvious solution!  I worked on the website/app algorithms for the search function during my final year thesis and launched the business last year.”

[Related: The Lab: The hi-tech fishing net that could save our seas]

The app even works with smartphone photos of television - its algorithms strip out irrelevant detail to focus on colour, cut and pattern, before searching for similar items.

“Our technology allows consumers to take pictures of clothes on TV, in magazines or on the street and deliver a range of similar outfits to suit all budgets and preferences. The results are delivered back to you in an instant finding you matches for the cut and colour or pattern.”

The app already has more than 100,000 users, and is partnered with retailers such as Top Shop and Net a Porter.  Every time someone buys an item via Snap Fashion, the company earns commission.