A Pinterest for Men’s Style? We Gave Looklist a Try
In the ever-evolving and constantly changing world of technology and social media, things can get a little weird. Half the time, new platforms and mediums are being created just because, and a lot of them are getting really oddly specific.
There’s Farmers Only, another dating site set up to match farmers with….other farmers, I guess. Or people who are really into farmers and the farmer life? Apparently it’s hard to get out and meet people during the harvest season, so Farmers Only is here to do the heavy lifting of dating for you – you harvest the crops, Farmers Only will harvest the ladies.
Have you heard of MyFreeImplants.com? Women can crowd source the funding for their breast implants, and guys can ogle the directory of attractive women and “invest in their breasts” and even “negotiate for custom videos and photos” in exchange for a donation. It would be so charitable if it weren’t so utterly creepy and narcissistic.
But today I’m here to talk to you a site far more benign than some of the aforementioned. Looklist is a relatively new site that boasts being “The international hub for curated fashion and hair inspiration,” – essentially Pinterest with a very specific focus on fashion and style for men and women. Looklist’s home page makes things pretty easy for the user by breaking down the site and it’s process into three easy steps:
- Find the exact inspiration you want.
- Organize and collaborate.
- Be a contributor.
If those steps went over your head, let me make this easier for you. You go on the site, you find stuff you like, you bookmark it and arrange it for easy access later, then you share it with other Looklisters and add your own images and ideas for others to use.
I went onto Looklist and had a look around, and I’ll give you my impression and experience as a first time user.
On the right side of the screen, there is a drop-down menu that connects you with Looklist’s blog, verified users, contact info, a Chrome extension, their About page, and the official legal jargon. The center header menu is broken down into a handful of categories – Hat Inspiration, Dapper Fall Style, Hair and Beard, and Stay Warm with Layers (which kind of sounds like the name of a New York indie rock band).
Now, you don’t have to be a member of Looklist to poke around the site, but you can’t create your own little scrapbook corner until you sign up. And Looklist will automatically prompt you every 17 seconds or so to sign up. It’s kind of like a pushy girlfriend asking me what I’m thinking every couple seconds. Nothing! God, can’t I just sit here without you trying to get in my head?
Upon clicking Dapper Fall Style, I’m given an easy to use filter system that lets me choose things like gender, temperature (cold – hot – mild), material, type of clothing, pattern, and a slew of other options that you can get lost in for 15 minutes, or approximately 768 more prompts to sign up for Looklist.
From my filter choices, I decide to be a smart-ass and search for camouflage print turtlenecks in a knit material. Believe it or not, I did not stump Looklist. Instead I got an entire page of images. Now granted, not every image is exactly a knit turtleneck in camouflage print, but Looklist will compile everything that falls into those given categories for you, which means I got a lot of solid colored knit sweaters, turtlenecks in various patterns, and I assume there was some camouflage print in there, but they blended into the surroundings and pretty much became invisible.
Once I clicked on an image, I was given a window that gave me the options to save the image, find similar styles, be linked directly to the original source of the image, or share the image on every social media platform that’s ever been invented. When scrolling over the image, I was given a little box that worked like a magnifying glass, which really made the pixelation of the image come to life. It was like I was inside the grainy low-res picture! In actuality, it’s a handy feature if you want to get a closer view of detailed portions of a given style, and a lot of the photos are high-res enough to give you a decent view when zoomed in.
And guys, I saved the best part for last. Looklist has an entire section dedicated to beards where you can choose the length and particular style of beard and get pages of photos for inspiration.
After the 800th prompt to sign up, I felt an actual emotional reaction of anger toward the site and decided that was my cue to shut it down and call it a day.
However my overall opinion of Looklist is a pretty good one – if you love the idea of being able to scroll through endless fashion and style photos for inspiration, all collected into one convenient site, Looklist might be just for you. So when you take a break from MyFreeImplants.com, check it out Looklist at lookli.st, and get to tracking down your inspiration!