Google Photos announced a feature that will identify clothes and accessories across a user's photo library and assemble them into a digital wardrobe. People will be able to filter items by categories such as tops, bottoms, and jewelry, combine pieces into outfits, save ideas to moodboards, share them with friends, and preview looks through virtual try-on. Google plans to release the feature on Android later this summer, followed by iOS, under Collections. The company gave no technical account of how recognition works. Its reference point is the computerized closet used by Cher in the 1995 film Clueless, an image of effortless dressing built around a wealthy teenager's extensive wardrobe.

The feature assigns a second purpose to photographs made for birthdays, trips, mirrors, and ordinary days. A coat at the edge of an old picture becomes an item in a current inventory. Repeated appearances can supply material for combinations and purchasing decisions. The family archive thereby acquires the organization of a shop, with categories, previews, and moodboards laid over remembered scenes. Google's version also changes the fantasy borrowed from Clueless. Cher had to catalogue garments for her dedicated computer. Google Photos proposes to construct the catalogue from images people have already stored. Its usefulness will depend on the visible clothes in those files, and the company suggests no method for recovering an item the camera never clearly recorded.