J.Crew launches AI shopping adviser that recommends complete outfits

J.Crew has launched Style Advisor, an AI shopping assistant that recommends complete outfits rather than leaving customers to assemble a look through separate product searches. Built with Anthropic’s Claude models, the tool brings the retailer’s own styling into a conversation on JCrew.com. It is available for women’s and men’s styles in the United States.

The initial release is on J.Crew’s desktop website.

A conversation built around catalog looks

Customers can begin with an occasion, such as a beach wedding or a first job interview, and ask for an outfit. They can also start with a single piece and request suggestions for pieces that complete it. Shoppers can keep refining their request through the conversation.

The recommendations have a defined source: looks J.Crew’s human stylists created for the brand’s catalog photo shoots. Anthropic says the assistant displays photographs of those complete outfits.

J.Crew CIO Danielle Schmelkin told Fortune that the assistant asks questions to understand a shopper’s intent. Her example was a wedding in Miami that is not too formal: the recommendation is meant to reflect those details, not just the word “wedding.” She described the goal as bringing in-store styling help online.

Different models build and run the stylist

Style Advisor was conceptualized by a J.Crew digital product designer, according to Fortune. Anthropic says the product team used Claude Fable 5.1 to plan the tool’s styling reasoning, then Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code to build a working prototype. J.Crew’s engineers took it into production.

During customer conversations, Anthropic says Claude Sonnet acts as the stylist and determines the steps in a response, while Claude Haiku handles quick, focused tasks. Schmelkin said J.Crew also built a monitoring layer behind the assistant to track costs.

We want to make sure we are constantly refining and using these models in the right way, both in terms of the outputs for our customers, but also the efficiency we want to see to make this scalable

Danielle Schmelkin, J.Crew chief information officer, speaking to Fortune

Customer history comes later

J.Crew plans to make suggestions more personal by incorporating customer preferences and past purchases. That is a future step, rather than a launch capability.

• Mobile access: J.Crew expects to add Style Advisor to its mobile app later, Fortune reports.
• Broader coverage: The retailer plans to bring the service to more markets and product lines.