"Lookbook.nu" was a

fashion Fashion is a term used interchangeably to describe the creation of clothing, footwear, Fashion accessory, accessories, cosmetics, and jewellery of different cultural aesthetics and their mix and match into Clothing, outfits that depict distinct ...

youth culture Youth culture refers to the societal norms of children, adolescents, and young adults. Specifically, it comprises the processes and symbolic systems that are shared by the youth and are distinct from those of adults in the community. An emphasis ...

, and

community website A virtual community is a social network of individuals who connect through specific social media, potentially crossing geographical and political boundaries in order to pursue mutual interests or goals. Some of the most pervasive virtual commu ...

, created by Yuri Lee in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

. It was inspired by

street fashion Street style is fashion that is considered to have emerged not from studios, but from the population at large. Street fashion is generally associated with youth culture, and is most often seen in major urban centers. Magazines and newspapers co ...

websites and blogs such as

The Sartorialist ''The Sartorialist'' is a fashion blog by Scott Schuman in New York City.Fleming, Kirsten; April 1, 2007;Shoots to Twill"; ''The New York Post''; retrieved April 2, 2007. Details After leaving a fashion sales position to take care of his daught ...

and

The Cobrasnake Mark Hunter (born July 21, 1985), also known as The Cobrasnake, is an American photographer. He is known for his photographs of American nightlife, particularly from the mid 2000s in fashion, 2000s to the early 2010s in fashion, 2010s. Early li ...

and designed for users to post their own street-fashion photography, featuring themselves and their outfits. One fashion writer called the site the "Digg.com for fashion insiders."

Lookbook

The website was free and allows everyone to join (a change from their original invitation-only system). It allows users to share their looks and activity in

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

and

Tumblr Tumblr (pronounced "tumbler") is a microblogging and Social networking service, social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and is owned by American company Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content ...

. Their goal is to provide a means for diverse, real people to provide fashion inspiration to others. Lookbook.nu claimed to have a user base of over 50,000 members and over one million unique hits per month. It was discussed in major fashion and media outlets, including ''

The Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN radio and WGN tel ...

'', ''Elle'' Belgium, ''Status'' magazine, and the ''

London Evening Standard The ''London Standard'', formerly the ''Evening Standard'' (1904–2024) and originally ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), is a long-established regional newspaper published weekly and distributed free of charge in London, England. It is print ...

''.

Site features

Outfits - or "looks" - uploaded to the site by its members were scored with points, known as "hype," to judge that outfit's popularity. This scoring system was used to differentiate between the looks on a basis of what is called "karma." Karma is the average of the total number of hypes a user has received, divided by the number of different looks that user has posted. This karmic average on the site dictated how much exposure that user will receive when posting new looks. Looks were displayed a variety of different ways on the website. The default view of the site was via the Hot tab, which showed those looks which are most popular on the site, judged by the amount of hype it received, and its popularity on that day in competition with other looks. A second tab, New, showed all looks uploaded, with the most recent shown first. The New tab offered a feature known as the Karma Filter, which allows for users with a higher karmic average to be featured more prominently on the feed. The Top tab featured the most popular Looks posted - and was sortable by day/week/month/year. Registered users (on the site as well through third-party services such as

and

), were allowed the option of hyping and commenting on the looks posted by other members. Hyping was done anonymously to encourage all users to hype, but a user was able to make their hype public by leaving the member a comment. Members were also allowed to give Love - symbolized with a ♥ - for looks that they especially like, and were also given an archive of the looks they have previously hyped and loved. Users were also allowed to become "fans" of other users. Lookbook.nu also had a forum where users can post topics and join discussions. The ability to invite new members still remained after invitation-only system ended.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lookbook.Nu Photoblogs Fashion websites American photography websites Internet properties established in 2008