Diet Coke was recently crowned the 2nd most popular soda in the US, beating out Pepsi and the recently revamped Diet Pepsi (whose taste we liked more than the packaging). Now it looks like the next round of the cola wars will be fought out over fashion content.

Diet Coke has sent giant bottles by Donatella Versace and Angela Missoni down the runway in Milan, collaborated with Karl Lagerfeld on cans and worldwide campaigns, and generally taken full advantage of the fashion flock’s love of the diet drink. Now, they’ve taken on one of online fashion marketing’s hottest trends and gotten into the branded content game.

The High Low, a Liz Claiborne brand curated content site itself, came across Style it Light, a channel within Yahoo! UK’s fashion channel. The site is part of a larger campaign designed to promote Diet Coke and Coca-Cola Light (as Diet Coke is sometimes called in Europe) across Northwest Europe and Nordic countries.

Style It Light is no Nowness, but it’s a good mix of street style, celebrity style, shopping tips and “how to wear it” content. In other words, fairly general fashion coverage, but for a brand that’s looking to appeal to a fairly general audience it seems like a good fit.

Fashion brands establishing semi-independent content offerings is nothing new: LVMH scrapped eLuxury to focus on Nowness, Net-a-Porter has long presented their content in their own magazine offering, Dolce & Gabbana has Swide, Shopbop teamed up with the Coveted’s Jennine Jacobs for Eat, Sleep, Denim.

Brands who are only peripherally associated with fashion jumping into the arena isn’t commonplace, but with the brands they often appear alongside in magazines doing it, it’s a shift we anticipate happening more often.

Your move, Diet Pepsi.

This weekend Signature9 attended Diet Pepsiâ€s Style Studio event in SoHo as part of New York Fashion week, and we have to say we were a bit disappointed with the whole thing. The night promised to include designs by Jonathan Adler, a Diet Pepsi “Skinny Bar” and most importantly a window display by Barneys†Simon Doonan, who was recently moved from being their creative director to “creative ambassador at large.”

The window creation Doonan produced for Diet Pepsi was somewhat impressive. It featured a giant high heel made of the new Diet Pepsi skinny cans (which wonâ€t hit retail shelves until March) as well as an equally large Diet Pepsi skinny can, also made out of regular-sized skinny cans. Both were pretty cool by themselves and must have taken quite a lot of work, but overall we got more of a tart than art vibe from the whole setting. The models working the display were dressed in just a t-shirt, panties and fishnets, and the giant shoe was stripper-heel style, though we do have to give props to the models for being able to balance on a platform made of soda cans. A model laid out on a chaise lounge was also sprawled by the front door, but it came off as cheap rather than eccentric chic.

The interior decorating was classier, but less creative, as it consisted basically of a few white flowers stuck in Diet Pepsi skinny cans throughout the room. There were also apparently special straws by Adler in the Diet Pepsi skinny cans that were served, but we really didnâ€t notice anything special just from drinking from them. Maybe weâ€re oblivious, but we thought they were just colorful.

Most of the headlines and blog posts about the Diet Pepsi Style Studio are actually about Blake Livelyâ€s attendance at the event, not the event itself, which pretty much says it all about just how memorable the night was.

We must say though, if Diet Pepsi is angling to replace Diet Coke as the fashionistaâ€s drink of choice, as many speculated a few weeks ago, they might have more of a chance than we initially predicted. The event was buzzing with fashion types, and Gabrielle Union, Rachel Roy and Lala Vazquez made an appearance in addition to Lively. The brand also partnered with Charlotte Ronson and Betsey Johnson for promotions. Plus, as an official sponsor of Mercedez-Benz Fashion Week, Diet Pepsi was very present in the main tent at Lincoln Center where we didn’t see one Diet Coke. There is work needed on the uptown class part of the campaign, but diet drink loyalty from the fashion set does seem to be up for a Pepsi challenge.

Diet Pepsi has plenty going for it as a 0 calorie, carb and sugar drink. The marketers behind it would be better off keeping it simple and pushing the Skinny Can (which is 12 oz., the same size as a normal soda can) to those looking to lose weight or quit drinking unhealthy soda, rather than those who already have a diet soda favorite. Call us stupid, but until sampling a six-pack of the Diet Pepsi Skinny Cans, we had no idea that Diet Pepsi tastes almost exactly like regular Pepsi. We canâ€t say the same for Diet Coke, which leaves a funky after-taste. Perhaps a money-back guarantee if it doesnâ€t taste like regular Pepsi would be a better hook than sending press releases and samples to fashion bloggers.

Now, switching to diet soda does have its downsides. For one, past studies have shown that those who drink diet soda tend to actually gain more weight because they think choosing a healthier soda means they can eat more. {CBS  News} Not to mention the fact that it is still, after all, soda. Though with Starbucks introducing ever larger cups (the better to accentuate the ever more minimal logo) that not so subtly encourage you to drink more iced coffee, tea or lemonade than some adult stomachs have room for, the mind trick of a taller, skinnier can that doesn’t actually contain any more soda than normal might not be so bad.

If youâ€re looking to improve your soda habits, and you know youâ€ll be able to simply substitute in Diet Pepsi for regular Pepsi, we highly recommend the product (though, oddly enough, the new can – a.k.a. the reason we were sent a product sample in the first place – really has nothing to do with our recommendation). But if youâ€re a water-drinker or you know you like to bargain with your diet, weâ€d say skip it. And if youâ€re a member of the fashion cult, rest assured you can keep sucking down the Diet Coke. We doubt Diet Pepsi will take over the fashion world just because of the Skinny Can. The one thing fashion loves more than skinny is its comfort zone.