StyleCaster, a fashion blog and community launched in 2009, has just undergone a major redesign, creating a user-generated, editorial hybrid with strong Pinterest influences.
The redesign places StyleCaster in a new position, with the goal of surfacing the best of fashion, style and beauty through photos, news and products. The startup already has massive number of readers and a reputation in the industry, making the redesign a perfect opportunity for staking its claim as the first homepage for style.
StyleCaster hopes to make it easier for everyone — from readers to bloggers and even brands and celebrities in the style space — to share photos, articles, and questions about fashion, beauty and pop culture. Anyone can submit to the site, and the most popular submissions will surface to the top (a la Reddit, Digg, etc). This way the community is in charge of curating the content, including StyleCaster’s own editorial work.
It’s easy to compare StyleCaster with Pinterest because they share similar layouts, but in the end both sites have very different strengths. You can share anything on StyleCaster, but only the best is featured. This way, bloggers, designers and brand don’t have to worry about coming across as too self-promotional. On Pinterest, you can really only share images and video, but StyleCaster is actually designed for surfacing top stories and products. In the end, the two aren’t even really competing.
As for design, StyleCaster has really nailed it. Visitors are left with a clean, minimalist design that pushes images to the forefront. The site feels sleek and ties-in StyleCaster’s new direction with original, editorial content.
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Of course, only the fashion community can decide if StyleCaster can be the powerhouse it hopes to be, but from the looks of it, the startup is heading full force in the right direction.
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