I tried a free AI clothing search tool, and it makes online thrift shopping much easier

If you’re a thrift shopper, you know the thrill of finding the perfect piece, especially if you weren’t looking for that specific item in the first place.

Unfortunately, it’s not as easy online. Your searches are almost always limited to tracking down a specific item or items from a certain brand, and with at least half a dozen major players in the clothing resale market, it can be fairly time-consuming. 

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That’s where Encore comes in. It’s an AI-powered clothing search engine that searches dozens of platforms and shows you exactly what you’re looking for on one screen. That is, if you know what you’re looking for — but if you don’t know what you want, it can help with that too.

While I wouldn’t exactly call myself fashion-forward, I decided to give Encore a try. 

My first few searches were fairly straightforward, ones that I thought would have worked as traditional Google searches. Asking Google to find “vintage Chicago Cubs jackets” showed mostly eBay results with a single Poshmark entry thrown in. Asking on Encore, though, showed a much wider variety of results from Mercari, Etsy, Depop, eBay, ThredUp, RealReal, Craigslist, and more. 

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I tried again with brands, items of clothing, and general styles, and got incredibly specific results each time. 

While that’s a better experience than I expected, it’s not where Encore shines.

Since the site uses a large language model (GPT-4o Mini), your query doesn’t have to be for a single item, or even for a specific kind of item. When I asked Encore to show me “vintage clothing pieces I could wear as a tour guide” (I’m a haunted history tour guide on the weekends), it returned with a list that ranged from an authentic 1890s wool coat priced at nearly $800 and Victorian-style jackets to period-appropriate replica hats and vests.

Beyond that, Encore offers options to “Shop from the show” and find “outfit inspo for.”  

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With the former, you can track down specific outfits worn on your screen. A prompt like “In Emily in Paris S4 E3, what was the dress she wore?” pulls up houndstooth pattern dresses similar to what the character wore. Asking Encore to “Shop from the show Suits, what were the suits Harvey wore in the first season?” showcases classic navy pinstripe suits.

Outfit inspo lets you give a scenario as a search prompt, like, “outfit inspo for a guy going to the US open,” or “outfit inspo for a coffee date, minimalistic, neutral,” or “outfit inspo for a night out in NYC, give me higher end brands, styles, and colors that go well.”

In short, you simply describe your outfit to Encore like you would a friend, and the search engine shows you where you can buy it secondhand. You can also make follow-up comments after any results to change price, size, color, etc.

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Encore does make a small commission off each purchase, but it doesn’t allow for sponsored ads, so search results are genuine.

The free version includes 2,000 daily product recommendations, a basic fashion model built on top of the existing LLM, and the ability to favorite items and view past searches. Upgrading to the Pro version for $4 a month or $36 a year gets you unlimited recommendations, twice as many recommendations per search, the most advanced fashion model, the ability to find items by uploading images, and what Encore calls “daily hidden gems.”