a shot by the Sartorialist
In dedication of the start of New York Fashion Week and the recent book launch by one of my favorite fixations, Scott Schuman aka the Sartorialist, I'm devoting an actual blog post to the inexplicably addictive phenom of street style bogs.
These blogs document people and their outfits ranging from the quietly chic to the outrageous. Most are based in certain metropolitan cities, most often New York, Tokyo, Paris and assorted European cities. Having gained momentum within the past year or so, they have come to generate ideas for fashion, prompt discussion about standards of beauty, and induce a real idee fixe among followers. What separates these photogs from the society photographers and paparazzi of the past are that they focus on everyday cosmopolites. Most subjects may be fairly wealthy and a large number admittedly work in the fashion industry, but they are nonetheless everyday people, not celebrities, unless you count the obsessive fans that have now begun to follow them. Indeed, what's particularly amazing is the fatuous fan base that has spread from the 100+ comments that each blog post generates to real movers and shakers, such as fashion powerhouse Paris Vogue to department stores Holt Renfrew, Collette, and Barney's New York, both of whom have recently dedicated store windows and retail space to these street warriors. Wholly and undeniably, that is real power.
Moreover, many of these photographers are usually not professional. Instead, they share a keen sense of detail and a love of style, not necessarily the wholly unapproachable fashion that magazines and websites have traditionally paid tribute to.
Schuman shot by Garance
The big daddy of this movement is, of course, the Sartorialist, a former director of a showroom. Schuman is pure evidence of the power and interest that street style now wields. The Sartorialist.com, his website, is minimal with the most basic web design borrowed from blogspot.com and usually relies on a simple headline that describes either the mood, the key detail, or the location where the subject was snapped. Instead, the photograph says it all. They're vibrant and welcoming, a reversal of the distancing cool that fashion usually shrouds itself in. Like other street style photographers, the Sartorialist insists that he isn't necessarily following what is “on trend”; instead, he photographs what he finds beautiful and moving. It definitely works. In fact, getting shot by the Sartorialist has become an impossible honor and obsession for many cosmopolites, so much that the website Refinery29 released this tongue-in-cheek graphic as a guide as to how to get his attention:
I've been following him since he's started; checking his website every morning has become part of my routine. I only see a growing popularity with the publication of his new book. A photograph on a website can't always capture everything there is to see – sometimes you just really need it in hardcopy. Sometimes Scott's pictorial subjects have escaped me; flipping through the book is both revealing and enlightening as to why so many of these people are graced with his lens. My only complaint is its size: I was definitely hoping for a coffee table size publication, but the regular edition (versus his “bespoke edition”) is the size of a normal paperbook – not the greatest size for displaying the power of detail that is so central to his work.
Yet, one musn't forget that the claims to street style documentation belong Japanese fashion magazines, who have been documenting their fabulous citizens for years now, and Bill Cunningham, a photographer for the New York Times. Bill is an absolute legend who still remains somehow undiscovered, or at least not popularly discussed by a non-New York audience. His photo column "On the Street" appear in the Sunday Times, usually focusing on a theme or an event. If the Sartorialist is all about the outstanding individual – he photographs them in the light of the gods – Bill's photographs are proletariat and democratic. A problem with many street style websites is that they tend to get stuck in a rut photographing the same people or styles. With Bill, you never know what to expect. His essays inevitably contain a multitude of races, socio-economic backgrounds, and appearances, from Park Avenue grand dames to Union Square skater kids. Over all, they embody his vision of New York. Bill Cunningham is New York City. I insist you listen to his audio column that comes out every week at nytimes.com – he is an absolute gentleman.
Garance shot by Schuman
I would suggest that his demi-descendant is French photographer Garance Dore. Garance is a mix of the Sartorialist (she's actually dating him) and Bill Cunningham. She has Cunningham's warmth, most obviously and wonderfully expressed in her columns that accompany most of her photos. At the same time, her photographs share the same devotion to light and space as Schuman's. While the Sartorialist himself often times remains a blank (which may be a good thing, judging from his recent interviews), Cunningham's and Garance's photos are suffused with personality. One noticeable feature (as pointed out by a friend) is how consistently physically blessed all of her subjects are. I don't understand where she finds them, but it both inspires and depresses me. While Bill is decidedly American and Scott lends a more international eye, Garance's aesthetic seems undeniably French no matter where her subjects are sourced from.
a shot by Tommy Ton
There are also a bunch of trendier sites that also document the street. My favorite of those is Jak & Jill (aka Tommy Ton), who forms some what of a trifecta with Garance and Schuman in the Holy Trinity of Street Style. Many of these sites, while interesting, are a bit derivative and lack the real warmth, aesthetic taste, and talent that the Greats have, however. While still undeniably great, they lack that je ne sais quoi, if you will, that Scott, Garance, Tommy and Bill embody. Check them out nonetheless – here are a few that I keep up with:
Copenhagen Street StyleStreetpeeperStyle and the CityStylesightings
photo from here.
However, the read was a little too trashy for even me - halfway through the book and our trip, I've dropping it off at the lounge for some intrepid traveler. As for me, I'll stick to the movie.
I'm normally resistant to contemporary literature from unknown authors - I like to know that my time is being well-spent. But I was in a hurry, nothing else caught my eye, it looked like it might keep me through my entire journey, and... hey, why not? The cover, at least, is fantastic. And for $18, it was a positive steal compared to whatever awful Nathaniel Hawthorne novel I might've picked up in Taiwan instead.
Signing off!
