Believe it or don’t, not every Android users gets all of his or her clothes from the prestigious Sam Walton Collection. (Well, I do, but I know not everyone does.) For those with an eye towards both fashion and social collaboration, StyleTag combines the elements of Flickr’s tagging system, Pinterest’s photo-based social networking and Picasa’s instant uploads. Their free app, “StyleTag: FashionSNS“, has an admirably advanced user interface with tens of thousands of entries for the sartorially obsessed.
The idea is simple enough: create a social network for the fashion conscious, wherein they can snap photos from their phones, upload them and “like” or comment on the results. The brilliant bit comes in the combination of the ubiquitous tags and StyleTag’s unique categorization system. Sure, you can look at the firehose feed in the main wall view of all the entries or just the most popular ones, but if you’re in the mood to find jeans or evening wear, or even items from a particular brand or designer, search by tag. You can save favorite tags or feeds to follow them Twitter-style, or just chat with other registered users.
As a method for casually browsing the latest in fashion, the app is an impressive accomplishment – I wish more mainstream software could look this good. Admittedly, the userbase skews overwhelmingly female at the moment; guys won’t find many tips or items of interest. As far as clothing goes, anyway. (Ahem.) Top users are turning in some impressive entries both for clothing and photography, though some is certainly taken with the aid of more than just a smartphone.
There are a few holdovers from the iOS app design, like portrait-only orientation and a persistent back button. But over all it’s a beautiful app with a surprising amount of depth, for those with the inclination to peruse its digital aisles. You can download it now in the Android Market – fair warning, it doesn’t seem to like Android tablets at the moment.
