Your Toolbox : Getting to Know Polyvore

By now many of you already know about Polyvore.com. Some of you may even use this website for your posts... and some of you may be using Photoshop (ahem, me) to create collages of items in the post. Sarah over at Polyvore.com and I had a chat where she let me know that's it's really a lot more than a collage making tool...

IFB: What is Polyvore? What can it do?
Sarah: Polyvore is a free, easy-to-use web-based application for mixing and matching items - shoes, shirts, skirts, bags, lipstick, nail polish, backgrounds, etc. - from anywhere on the web. It is also a vibrant community of creative and stylish people! With Polyvore, you can put together coordinated outfits, a visual wishlist, an interior design, a moodboard, a birthday card for a friend - pretty much anything you want.

You can see a demo of our editor tool here:
http://s141.photobucket.com/albums/r41/polyvore/?action=view&current=editormovie.flv

Once an outfit is created, users publish them to the Polyvore community. Each outfit has a dedicated page on Polyvore, featuring a list of the items within the outfit, with a link to the store where it can be purchased, as well as the creator's name, number of times viewed, the ability to embed the set within any website or online forum, Polyvore Groups that its in, commenting and favoriting, and color swatches that show the color theme of the outfit.

Fashion bloggers especially like Polyvore because they can easily use it as a tool to add professional, magazine-like spreads to their blog posts. For example, a post about celebrity style could include a picture of the celebrity, with a recreation of their outfit made on Polyvore.com. Or, a post about a particular color or style trend could include outfits that show many examples of that trend arranged in a set, or show a recommendation for how that trend could be worn within a look. All of the outfits created on Polyvore can be embedded into any post as long as they link back to Polyvore.com. And what's even cooler is that all the product information is available on each outfit page - just a click away.

IFB: Who are the bulk of users at Polyvore?

Sarah: We have all kinds of different members on Polyvore. Some are fashion and design students, some are professional stylists, some are retailers or small boutiques who have their own products featured on Polyvore, and some of them are just regular girls (and boys) who enjoy being creative and expressive.

IFB: Where do the products on your site come from?

Sarah: Polyvore has an ever-expanding collection of products that currently contains over one million items. Products find their way into Polyvore primarily through our members. Using a bookmarklet installed on the browser window, users can quickly pull products into Polyvore as they discover them on the web. Alternatively, products can be included on Polyvore by retailers themselves, such as American Eagle, Charlotte Russe, and Net-a-Porter, who supply us with a link to their latest catalog, which we then import into Polyvore.

IFB: How does can this site help fashion bloggers?

Sarah: Polyvore can help fashion bloggers by giving them an easy way to express their posts visually, with real products. This adds a lot of value to their posts - which their readers will certainly appreciate! Bloggers also use Polyvore for contests - getting their readers involved by challenging them to create outfits within a certain theme, or using a specific item. This makes their blogs an interactive, two-way conversation that can contribute to their site's growth.

IFB: Any success stories?
Sarah: Fashiontribes co-sponsored a contest with Intermix Online that was extremely successful and generated over 1500 outfits. The winners will be announced today, and five lucky stylists will each be receiving a $500 gift certificate to Intermix Online. Style Observer is a quickly growing fashion blog that uses Polyvore sets regularly to illustrate styles and trends in their blog posts. Finally, Gala Darling of iCiNG recently teamed up with ModCloth to sponsor a fashion challenge that her readers are really enjoying.

IFB: What are some upcoming or new features that are useful tools for blogging?
Sarah: Today, Polyvore will be launching a "Sites We Like" section on our Explore page. The Explore page is the heart of our community and gets over half a million pageviews per month. Blogs that regularly use Polyvore on their sites will have the opportunity to be featured here and gain extra traffic to their site, increasing their visibility to our community and growing their audience. For more information on this, interested bloggers can contact

We are also testing a feature that allows bloggers to embed the Polyvore editor on their site, so that their readers can put together looks using all of the products recommended by that blogger. You can see an example of this on a test blog we made called "Shop this Look" http://www.shopthislook.com We think this might be a really great tool to add interactivity to fashion blogs, and turn each and every one of us into seasoned stylists! If you'd like to be involved in the beta test of this program, please contact "info@polyvore.com"