Since VentureSquare talked to SoCAT earlier this year, a lot has changed. The company, which took part in VentureSquare’s first SparkSquare program, were back again this year with a new vision and a renamed service.
“Fashion District” is the result of a revamp of the company’s previous site fashion site Snafle. Snafle had focused heavily on curation but the company felt that it was difficult to use and didn’t really like the design. Taking all the feedback received, Fashion District was the result of a complete renewal. The site is a fashion image based social network where users can log in with their social network accounts or separately via e-mail and share fashion related images and information.
Images are divided into two types, ‘street’ and ‘runway’. Uploaded images are automatically placed in the “street” section of the site. Users then vote and the most popular images are selected and moved to the “runway”. Images chosen for the runway are published on an online magazine and users can gain the benefit of a larger audience and the chance to be invited to parties. Images are also categorized into either ‘style’, ‘item’ or ‘miscellaneous’. As expected, clothes are generally placed in ‘style’, accessories in ‘item’ and nail art or other beauty related pictures in ‘miscellaneous’. Previously with Snafle, there was a wide range of categories to choose from including ‘outdoor’ and ‘family look’. In the end there were around twenty categories and users didn’t know which category to put their images in.
Fashion District plans to differentiate itself from others by the way it runs its service. This is because management issues depend on service structure rather than the platform itself. One way is that SoCAT tries to connect users to each other by holding network parties.
“We believe we need to expand our user base with people who have a deep interest in fashion at the beginning. Even if numbers are small, we want to create a user base and service that has meaningful content.”
Some of the upcoming features for Fashion District are the “stage”, where selected images for the “runway” can be seen and “Look Book”, a user-based curation service. Through users cannot only share images that they like from others but they can also subscribe to specific users.
Currently the service is in the beta stages with an app to be released at the same time the website officially opens in November. Users can try out the beta version at the Fashion District website.