Designer Christopher Bailey has already done so much to de-stodgify Burberry‘s image.

In just six years, he’s managed to parlay the brand’s staid tartans and trenches into understated, hip, uber-covetable clothes. Bailey’s also a veritable It Girl scout — the brand’s ads always feature gorgeous young Brits, and via Burberry campaigns supermodels Agyness Deyn and Lily Cole, among others, have rocketed to catwalk fame. (The Burberry gal of the moment is a kohl-eyed Emma Watson.)

Now the brand is taking the high-end, street-chic trajectory Bailey has cultivated one step further by launching a social networking site next month.

Artofthetrench.com will feature pictures of street peeps wearing Burberry trenchcoats. The Sartorialist, Scott Schuman, will also be photographing people sporting the coats in major cities for the site, according to the Financial Times.

Burberry hopes the informal, word-of-mouth format will help grow their customer base. Though we’re still skeptical on how interesting an entire website of khaki trenches has the potential to be (no matter how artfully snapped by Schuman), it’s about time a designer brand went in for social networking. Too many high-fashion brands shun social networking media as a low form of advertising, foolishly forgetting  how powerful a tool it is.

Sadly, I don’t own a Burberry trenchcoat of my own, but if the tartan scarves start popping up on the site, I just might wrap up in mine and send a few snaps their way.