The camera never lies … What BeReal selfies have taught me about my fashion choices | Jess Cartner-Morley

The photo-sharing app leads to some pretty random images - and with them unexpected but useful style lessons

The social media platform BeReal, in which users take a photo during a random two-minute period every day, is not an obvious place to look for style inspiration. Unlike Instagram, which is full of selfies taken specifically to show off a new coat, a good hair day or a flattering lift mirror, BeReal shows everyone at their most humdrum. If Instagram is a glossy, coffee table book compilation of high days and holidays, Be Real is a blooper reel of life's tea-bath-bed days.

If you are on the app, you get a notification to take a picture of what you are doing at a random time of day - and the reverse camera snaps a selfie while you are doing it. It means you are much more likely to be in the park in your dog-walking coat or sitting at your laptop in an old hoodie than you are to be dolled up.