Webware

New York based Neighborhoodies has a cool new tool for people who are all about customization called the "hoodie-o-matic." Like services that let you custom design clothing to sell to others, you can create an entire garment in your browser and see the results in real time as you toggle various options.

The results aren't actually a new service offering. In fact, the previous system would let you do the same thing, although it was a series of drop-down menus, the result of which you'd only see once you received the garment. The new system takes away that element of surprise, and also cuts down on some of the manpower needed to transfer over those design orders for printing.

I had great fun creating the one pictured below, although as you can see from the price tag these designs don't come cheap. Each additional design element costs a little extra on top of the base price, although you can stack on as many as you want.

For now the tool only works with hooded sweatshirts (hence the name), but considering the large volume of t-shirts the company sells, there could be a version for t-shirts or another articles later on down the line.

The Hoodie-o-matic lets you design hoodies with all sorts of custom touches. They don't come cheap though.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

How would real cloth react? This might not be the best way to find out, but it sure is fun.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

While having a fast gaming rig lets you experience games with high frame speeds and ridiculous polygon counts, there are some simple pleasures in the realm of Flash gaming. For such an endeavor, check out this cloth physics simulation created by Web developer Jeff Nusz.

The "tool" (as I'll call it loosely, since you're likely not worried about air speed effects on large pieces of cloth frequently enough to use it) lets you futz about with an imaginary cloth that can be resized and put up against a fan. You can tune the speed of the fan, all the way to hurricane strength, which will keep smaller sized cloths nearly parallel with the ground.

The entire experience is only limited by the size of the testing room--which unfortunately cannot be altered. Just remember, if someone catches you playing with it just tell them you're using it to buy curtains.

[via Digg]

I once had a French teacher in high school who--legend has it--purchased about a hundred pairs of the same shoe in the same size after deciding it was the best pair of shoes he had ever worn, and calculating the wear rate combined with his life expectancy. For him, my guess is that picking out what pair of shoes he wanted to wear each day was not an issue, but for everything else, maybe he could have benefited from a service called Closet Assistant, which as the name suggests is a system to help you pick out what clothes to wear based on what you've got sitting in your closet.

Similar to some of the bookshelf sharing services out there (Shelfari, Delicious Library, et al), Closet Assistant requires the user to manually input their inventory of clothing. Users can simply upload a picture, or go the whole nine yards by adding names, descriptions (complete with category and subcategory), price paid, and purchase date. Once added to their virtual closet, these items can be combined with others to make an outfit. You can then share these outfits with others Closet Assistant users (on a MySpace-like profile page), or schedule what you want to wear, and when you want to wear it until the end of time using the calendaring tool. Assumingly, users who set up their outfits for each day can do away with the annoyance of having to decide on what to cover up with each morning.

Is this useful? From an insurance standpoint I suppose it is (each user profile shows an approximate total wardrobe value), but what's interesting here is the social angle. How easily this can translate into a clothes swap or auction service, and integrate with other existing social networking sites is the next step. I'm just waiting for the inevitable Facebook app.

[found on SimpleSpark via KillerStartups]

Related: Shopcasting can flaunt your style, but the wardrobes need help

Closet Assistant helps you organize your clothing to help make outfits easier to make and choose. No we're not joking.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

While people without clothes on dominate a great deal of traffic online, the same can be said about those with clothes--otherwise known as the world of fashion. StyleMob, a new social network for street fashion, is opening up its doors on Thursday. Aimed mostly at female users, the service is a social network about clothes and people who like to show off their outfits. Users can pick who has the most style, and submit their own outfits or fashion inventions for others to rate and comment on. There's also the virtual equivalent of a fashion police with groups of users called StyleCouncils who will pick apart an outfit and provide feedback--good and bad.

Consider it a mix between Hot-or-Not, and Del.icio.us--with a dash of Joan Rivers.

StyleMob lets you vote on entire outfits, or various clothing items.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

A great deal of the site revolves around the voting system, which lets users vote whether or not an outfit is good or bad on a scale of 1 to 4. Users are also able to bookmark clothing items they like and tag them for sorting. The highest ranked items show up on a daily wall of fame, and the occasional user will get picked by StyleMob's editors to be the daily MobStar, or person of interest.

Like any social network, users get to fill out all sorts of profile information, although StyleMob focuses on things like favorite designers, places to shop, and fashion tips. Each user also gets their own "Lookbook," which is essentially a photo gallery for clothes, both theirs, and those of friends. All of this is held together with a friend system, and a large set of forums where you can discuss all things fashion.

Will StyleMob float? I think so. There are already over 6,000 users who have been testing during the service's three-month private beta, and I'm sure that number will go up when the service opens up its doors. There are also plans to include contextual ads, and clothing store tie-ins. Facebook and MySpace command a great deal of time and traffic from this crowd. It's the strange addictive quality of browsing through other people's pictures that have made services like Flickr and Hot-or-Not so popular with people from many demographics. I'd expect to see a similar attraction to StyleMob.

Related:
Shopcasting can flaunt your style, but the wardrobes need help
FashMatch: One click away from fashion 2.0

MyShape Type S: Clothes for curvy girls.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

I just heard a presentation on MyShape, a relatively new clothing retail site for women. Its secret sauce: It collects all the measurements of the clothing it carries and puts them into a database, and then asks its consumers to enter in their measurements, from which it builds individual profiles. Each profile gets a shape code, for example, shape S is "curvy front and side profiles." Users can also bypass the measurements and just pick their shape codes from the descriptions on the site.

Once a shopper has her profile in the system, the store only shows clothing that will flatter her shape type. Since it's based on measurements and proportions, not the quasi-arbitrary size label that designers put on their clothes, the return rate on purchases is lower: CEO Louise Wannier claims 10 percent to 12 percent customer returns vs. the industry average of 20 percent to 30 percent.

The site is designed for "women, who love to shop." Well, I'm a man, and I hate to shop, and want this service badly. Competitor Intellifit might work, but it requires I go to a physical location and get scanned. Women should also see Zafu, which focuses on jeans.

Found at the Web Ventures event.

At South by Southwest, I met the guys from InnerTee, a custom T-shirt-making company. Other custom apparel operations, like Cafe Press, GoodStorm, and Zazzle are great sites for creating schwag--apparel using your own logos and slogans. But on InnerTee, you can only select from the painfully hip artwork already on the site. Baseline apparel prices on InnerTee are decent, but you pay for each art element you want to include on your item.

Yours for only $22.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

For example, my masterpiece, Monster Whisperer, started with a $12 T-shirt. But the five design elements I added to it racked the price up to $22. At least on InnerTee there's no minimum order size, and the clothing is all screen-printed. The founders I met were all wearing their own products, and they looked great.

Designing you own shirt is easy, and a lot of fun, with the site's Flash-based design tool (much like on the other custom apparel sites). It's a drag that you can't change the size of the art elements, but you can rotate them.

Artists can submit artwork for inclusion in the InnerTee design catalog, and they get a cut each time someone includes their work in an order. Users don't get cash for mixing artwork on items, but they do get "karma points" for creating mixes and for participating in the InnerTee community. Karma points can be redeemed for discounts on future orders. Coming this weekend: a Digg-like voting system that will award the top designers extra karma points.