Meet Yuri Lee. The founder of famous fashion website: www.lookbook.nu: the invite-only fashion community where users post their fashion looks for others to see and appreciate. Loved looks are “hyped” while those less stylish are ignored. It’s the essence of virtual inspiration, attracting a global membership and audience. Audrey Rogers, of www.befrassy.com, talks to its ingenius creator Yuri Lee.

When and why did you start www.lookbook.nu?
I have always loved all forms of art. I attended an arts high school in Orange County and this was definitely a huge influence in my life as it taught me to appreciate all modes of personal expression—including fashion, of course! To me, the rise of so many blogs dedicated to showcasing real, accessible fashion from everyday people made an important statement—for practical fashion inspiration, one should look to the streets and to parties, rather than the runways or pages of glossy magazines.

We began following some fashion bloggers who had achieved hordes of fans just from documenting and blogging about their daily outfits. That’s when we realized that if we were to make a site that gathered all these looks from all these people en masse, we could create a truly global, virtual lookbook of contemporary street styles. And since we didn’t see any site out there dedicated to this concept (at least none that were really great), we decided to go for it ourselves. So LOOKBOOK was born in April out of our small apartment in San Francisco.

Who was the first member to join the Lookbook community?
I’m not sure if she is comfortable with us releasing her name, but I’m happy to say she is still with us today!

Were there any difficulties you had to overcome in order to make Lookbook such a global success?
Not at all! Our original goal has always been to accommodate a diverse range of styles from creative and progressive people in all parts of the world, so for the most part I would say our direction has not really changed. We have, however, already begun to consider (sooner than we thought we would) internationalizing the site; i.e., translating it into more languages so that non-English speaking countries (such as Japan and Korea) can also participate.

Why is Lookbook invite-only?
With the hopes that LOOKBOOK will not become a massive myspace sort of site, we are very selective in inviting individuals with fashion backgrounds. We are an intimate community that really enjoys seeing how LOOKBOOK has brought people from across the globe together!

One word to describe Lookbook?
Addicting!

How many people run and maintain Lookbook? Where is it based? Do you have an office, or is it a home-run organisation?
My boyfriend Jason and I run LOOKBOOK from our 1 bedroom apartment in the SOMA district of San Francisco. Our newest addition to the team, Andy, handles advertisements (we hate ads too, but LOOKBOOK is a free site for our users and server costs get pretty expensive!) and collaborations with other sites.

Describe fashion…
Fashion is about self-expression and I think you need to free yourself from what’s been deemed cool and hip in order to truly find your own unique style, and in that way, find your place in the world.

What do you think Lookbook offers the individual fashionista?
LOOKBOOK is a source of visual inspiration and a place where people passionate about fashion can transcend international and global boundaries to interact with a community of people just like them.

From what and where do you and your team get inspiration?
The major inspirations for LOOKBOOK were street style bloggers like the famous Sartorialist and scene photographers like thecobrasnake, both of whom were very fascinating to me when I first discovered them.

For more style inspiration, visit www.lookbook.nu