Just a few weeks ago Burberry announced the upcoming launch of its own social network, to be titled The Art of the Trench. The site was originally described as a porthole "initially [to] feature users sending in pictures of themselves wearing Burberry trench coats." But along with the site's launch today comes news that Scott Schuman (a.k.a. The Sartorialist) has been enlisted to photograph trendsetters around the globe sporting Burberry trenchcoats. And apparently Schuman wasn't the only photographer commissioned to do so.

"It starts out as a library of photos of different people in coats, and you can sign up to leave comments about the ones you like, or don't like, as the case may be. You can choose to look at people by gender, style, coat color, and, awesomely, you can even sort the pictures by weather if you want to see people wearing trench coats in the rain," says Racked.com of the newly launched site. I spent some time scrolling around, and while it definitely offers a fair bit of street style eye-candy, the fact that it's limited to trenches is bound to get a bit old. While the concept overall is limiting, the expansion is by no means something to scoff at. Burberry is definitely doing something new here, not to mention the fashion house is arguably the first to take its embrace of online networking to this level. Perhaps the most interesting part of the site is it's "Story of the Trench." Divided by decades, the offshoot features old newspaper articles on the style and 360-degree looks at trenches from Burberry's archive.