All Startup Ideas

AI lookbook studio for indie fashion brands

Reference-locked lookbooks from flat-lays for indie apparel under $5M — 60-page seasonal books without a $5K–$20K shoot.

A three-person label in Portland finishes a 28-SKU drop on a Tuesday. Samples are steamed. Hardware is correct. The collection is the best thing they have made. Then the founder opens the production calendar and hits the same wall every season: a studio lookbook that actually sells the clothes costs $5K–$20K per shoot, and two to four drops a year puts the annual photography line at $40K–$80K. That is a junior hire, or the entire paid-ads budget, or the fabric deposit for next season. So they shoot flat-lays on seamless paper in the showroom, recycle last year’s model day, and upload the same three-quarter crop to Shopify, Faire, and a PDF they are embarrassed to send a buyer. The garments compete on design. The imagery competes on budget. One side of that equation always loses.

Built for Creators, Small Business Owners.

Suggested stack: Next.js (App Router) + Vercel, Fal or Replicate (Flux + IP-Adapter / reference), Shopify app, Stripe Billing, Cloudflare R2 or S3, PDF pipeline (react-pdf or similar). Weekend scope: about 12 hours.

The Problem

A three-person label in Portland finishes a 28-SKU drop on a Tuesday. Samples are steamed. Hardware is correct. The collection is the best thing they have made. Then the founder…

The Solution

Stitchframe is a seasonal lookbook studio, not a single-shot product photographer. A brand uploads five-angle flat-lays, fabric swatches, and a short style brief: palettes…

Market Research

Indie DTC under $5M is digitally transforming on a shoot budget that does not. $5K–$20K per book, two to four times a year, is structural. Inference for 60 pages is a rounding…

Competitive Landscape

Photoroom — Best single-shot staging: backgrounds, model swap, e-comm crops. Trusted on a PDP. Not a 60-page book, no SKU lock across poses, no line sheet. About $10–$30/mo. The…

Business Model

Preview ($0) — One locked page from a single SKU. Watermarked. The “oh, that’s actually our jacket” moment.

Recommended Tech Stack

Next.js (App Router) + Vercel — Brand dashboard, drop workspace, plate review. Server Actions for generate/regenerate.

AI Prompts to Build This

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  1. 1. Project Setup

    Build the weekend MVP of "Stitchframe": upload flat-lays and a style brief for one garment and get a reference-locked set of lookbook plates that still look like your clothes.
    
    Stack: Next.js (App Router), TypeScript, Tailwind, Supabase (Postgres, Row Level Security, Storage, Auth with email magic link), Fal or Replicate (pick one) for Flux with IP-Adapter, Claude (Anthropic API) with image input for the garment-match check. Deploy on Vercel.
    Scope: one SKU and a six-plate sheet this weekend, not the 60-page book.
    
    Tables (Row Level Security on, a brand reads only its own rows):
    - brands(id, user_id, name)
    - drops(id, brand_id, season, status)
    - skus(id, drop_id, name, wholesale_cents, colors jsonb, sizes)
    - assets(id, sku_id, kind, storage_key, ref_hash) where kind is one of flat, swatch, plate
    - plates(id, sku_id, page_no, prompt, seed, lock_score, status)
    
    Screens: /login, /drop (add a SKU and its five flat-lays), /plates (review).
    Env vars (names only): NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_URL, NEXT_PUBLIC_SUPABASE_ANON_KEY, SUPABASE_SERVICE_ROLE_KEY (server only), IMAGE_API_KEY, ANTHROPIC_API_KEY.
    
    Do not build: billing or plans, the Shopify app, the 60-page PDF and line sheet, a second SKU per run, a job queue.
    Done when: npm run dev starts, you can sign in, and the five tables exist with Row Level Security on.
  2. 2. Core Feature

    Build the one feature that proves Stitchframe: plates that stay the same garment.
    1. POST /api/generate-plates takes a sku_id. Require five flat-lay images, optional swatches and a style brief.
    2. Call Flux through Fal or Replicate with IP-Adapter so every plate is conditioned on the flats. Produce six plates: one hero, two styled looks, two details and one lifestyle.
    3. Save the seed, the ref_hash and the model version on each plate.
    4. Run a cheap vision pass with Claude and the flats attached. Score garment mismatch. Below the threshold, set the plate to review and do not show it as final.
    5. Return at once with the sku's status, run the plates in the background, and let the page poll. The call is idempotent on sku_id plus ref_hash.
    6. /plates shows the six plates beside the original flats, with each lock_score.
    Rules: never ship a plate that failed the garment check.
    Empty state: with no SKU, show the add-SKU form and the list of five required flat-lay angles.
    Done when: one bomber jacket produces six plates, a deliberately wrong plate is held for review, and re-running the same input does not create duplicates.
  3. 3. Landing Page

    Build a one-page landing site for Stitchframe, a reference-locked lookbook studio for indie fashion brands.
    Hero: "Ship a 60-page lookbook that still looks like your clothes." Sub: "Flat-lays, swatches and a style brief in. Model, location and line sheet out. Reference-locked so page 47 is the same jacket as page 4." One button: Lock one SKU free, which joins the waitlist.
    Sections: a before and after of one bomber (flat and locked look) with no fake logos, the $5K to $20K shoot problem, how the lock works in four steps (capture references, lock the garment, generate the season, export and ship), and an FAQ on fidelity, commercial use and whether a buyer will know.
    Waitlist: store the email in a waitlist table in Supabase. No other service.
    Style: off-white, near-black and one rust or oxblood accent.
    Done when: the page renders on a phone and a submitted email appears in the waitlist table.
  4. 4. Branding Package

    Use a design or image tool for this one. A coding agent cannot draw a logo.
    Brand for Stitchframe: a wordmark and a small mark that reads as a stitching frame or a garment clip, not a camera.
    Colors: near-black, warm paper, one oxblood or rust accent and one metal gray for hardware. Type: a sharp grotesque for the interface and a display serif only on lookbook covers.
    Voice rules: never say "magic", always say "lock", always put a real SKU in the example, never dunk on photographers, dunk on the invoice.
    Deliverables: wordmark, mark, a 6-icon set (flat, lock, look, detail, sheet, export), and three PDF cover treatments for a fictional label.
    Done when: each deliverable is saved in one folder and the six icons are distinct at 24 px.