This week I was going to write about Ikeapocalypse (a phrase coined by Westword, a local weekly publication here in Denver). It was going to be about how well a retailer can survive the frenzy of a massive store opening event — specifically, the first Ikea in the Denver metro area. However, I still can’t get within spitting distance of the store because of all the people lined up out front, so that story will come to you next week. In its place, I offer something I hadn’t thought about in a long time: a virtual closet.

I think there have been many attempts at a virtual closet — you know, where you keep an online version of all of your clothes, so that theoretically when you’re shopping you have access to your complete inventory and can make judgment calls like “Yeah, that jacket really will go with those pants.” The problems were many (I’m talking early internet age, here): getting good images of your inventory, getting them online, and then having them easily accessible while shopping.

Mobile has changed all that, and I stumbled across what may be an actual, successful virtual closet – one that may be worth it enough to change the way you shop. The app (I can only vouch for iPhone at the moment, but they may have Android out there as well) is called VIZL. Here’s what makes it work:

• It’s mobile. I can access it when I’m in a store, as opposed to being chained to the desktop back in the day. That means it’s good for both online and in-store shopping, and it also means I can use it for more than just shopping – I can use it for outfit planning with friends (I don’t really do this, but I already have insight from my 7-year-old daughter that this will become a major part of her life in the not-too-distant future). I could also see some possibilities here for distant grandparents to be a more constructive part of their children’s clothes purchases.
• It leverages the phone’s camera. So I can take pictures of clothes and immediately add them to the app – no multi-stage process of taking pictures, loading pictures onto computer, then uploading pictures onto a site somewhere.
• It leverages product barcodes. I haven’t tested this yet to see how well it works, but it’s interesting to me that the app includes the ability to scan a barcode with a mobile phone as effectively version 1.0 capabilities. That’s something for retailers to think about in their own mobile strategies.
• It distinguishes between reality and wishlist. Hand in hand with the barcode capability is a way to separate out things you like and want and things that you already own, so that you can stay only within the bounds of what you have, or you can see how something new works into the mix. There’s also a drag and drop capability that helps you mix and match and when you find a combination you like, you can save the look.
• It lets me save coupons and put expiration dates on them. The coolest piece – and the one that I suspect may lead to a revenue model for the app in the future — is the promotions section, which lets you take pictures of direct mail offers, tag them, note their expiration dates, so that you have a better chance of matching up the image of the jacket with the coupon from the retailer — an opportunity to convert.

There are also some social capabilities as well, including integration into Facebook (of course). All in all, a very complete app for managing fashion items — the first I’ve seen in a long line of online sites once dedicated to exactly this type of concept. Ultimately, it’s a long-time aspiration that was finally made useful by mobile.

The lesson for retailers? Two-fold: one, the table stakes for mobile get higher and higher every day. And apps like VIZL make a strong case for app over mobile site, because it so easily taps into important phone capabilities, like the camera. Retailers’ mobile strategies for version 1.0 have to have more and more as a minimum to have any credibility with consumers. Two, here is an app that solves a problem — making sure that the next item purchased goes with the other items I already own. There’s a bit of an upfront investment for the consumer to get major wardrobe pieces in the app, but really not anything more extensive than a day cleaning out the closet anyway. Once set up, the value-added capabilities are pretty compelling. So in looking at a mobile strategy, you have to think through what value a capability really brings to your shopper — not just throwing something out there because it’s cool.