STREET STALKING

Being an intraspectator means being adept at superstealthing. To look but not come off as staring, observing without leaving that rude disposition of a blatant once-over. I’ve decoded outfits on people for so long that I can flip through the crowd and pick the best three that are worth photographing in minutes. That’s what I do, I chronicle style. Fashion with all its schizophrenic tendencies will never lack in dynamism, and every moment documenting people with sartorial taste is a chapter added to a higher style education. We may not be gunning for fashion week capital of the world, but seeing youngin’s teetering in summer’s love for nudes/neutrals, or a downplay to the new minimalism shows that they do get it.

So when paths meet with similar mindsets, it’s like planets colliding. I was at Power Plant Mall last Friday talking with Anna, Preview’s editorial assistant, when we were approached to have our photos taken. In press events that happen in the evening, this would be taken all in stride, all part of working the angles for milling snap-happy photographers. But malling, in the afternoon, in daywear, is quite different. Though we’re all familiar with street- style photography — care of “The Sartorialist” and all its diffused versions — rarely do we have any locally that captures dressing in the day.

So it was a welcome surprise to have someone come up and ask exactly that. Turns out the mall is doing a concept called “Sartorial Fridays” — where they pick random people that are fashyown. Not a new train of thought, but acknowledgment of personal taste, especially one from a stranger, always does wonders for morale. Though personally their goal of finding 20 is a bit ambitious, (I only found four in their last batch — and style is always relative to the one taking the photo), they deserve a pat in the back. I’m all for anything that makes people care about what they put on, and if there’s an added incentive to skip-hop out of the house in something other than your ubiquitous uniform of baby tee and skinny jeans, then all the better. And by incentive, I don’t mean just the bragging rights and four seconds of hipster fame on their Facebook account, Anna and I both got free tickets to the movies. Ka-ching!

This was my second time for daywear chronicling, the first one was just as unanticipated. The imagists came as a pack, a collective of photographers (around four, I think) who descended on me with their SLRs in the marbled floors of Greenbelt 5. Asking politely if they can document my style, they asked me to pick a location and once posed, shot me from four different views. Quite unnerving really, I mean, I do have a comfortable angle when the lens is pointed full frontal, but having them — precision like — fan out 180 degrees around me went beyond my personal comfort space. At that moment I just felt all my body fat shrink and cringe unto themselves. Where was Spanx when I needed it?

They got my e-mail address, promising to send me hi-res copies of the shots, and their card: manilastreetstyle.com. And I did get the promised photos, all 28 of them, with full and side views, close-up and detail shots of my outfit, shoes, and bag. Pretty cool.

I mean, okay, I know street style has been around ever since forever. (with the term “street style” being overused to the point of death) But appreciation for pedestrian chic in its purest essence, which is what you really wear to work, to school, literally what you wear on the street, has only gained momentum, let me see, for a year and a half here? It’s a trend, but that in itself is good news. It only means that there are enough style subjects that worth photographing and archiving. Hallelujah! This nomad group of photographers is, in their own way, stirring up a new mindset — that daywear dressing can be as interesting as night. And while event dressing takes planning, with a window of time to primp, prepare, and do retail therapy according to required dress codes, daywear dressing, on the other hand, is spontaneous, based on moods, and really not contrived. And that for me is the gauge of great personal style. When you still put in an effort to look fabulous, even if you know that no one else is going to see you.