Any company still not capitalizing on social media has long since been left in the dust, the fahsion industry notwithstanding, but Japan is kicking the fusion of fashion and online activity into high gear with the announcement of Wear.jp, a social network most easily described as the facebook of fashion. Designed to bring together fashionistas and fashion officianados with a suite of handy fashion related apps, the new endeavor is pioneering ground that will soon become mainstream.

In the last 2 months, Yusaku Maezawa, founder and president of Start Today, the operator of Zozotown, has been tweeting teasers for a new online venture called Wear.jp, creating a great deal of excitement among Japanese fashionistas. Start Today owns Japan’s biggest dedicated fashion shopping portal and has an unrivalled loyalty among true fashion devotees.

Start Today formally announced the new service two weeks ago. Wear is a ‘mobile first’ social commerce concept aimed, at least in theory, at driving fashion lovers into stores. The service, which still hasn’t launched, will leverage Zozotown’s large database of nearly 5 million fashion consumers and massive collection of product code numbers from its merchant base, to create a fashion social network dedicated to discussion of fashion. (Read More)