It must have been five years ago when, bored and hungry for some inspiration, I stumbled upon Street Chic, a section in the British Vogue website that showcases everyday people wearing everyday clothes in interesting and inspired ways. Whether it was an exchange student hanging out on Carnaby Street or a Spanish tourist walking the length of Oxford Street, the ladies and gents it has featured are pretty in an authentic and spontaneous way. None of them, at least from my estimation, look like they tried too hard to be photographed and that’s what continues to make it refreshing.
But things have changed dramatically since then. Will Welch, a senior editor at GQ, notes in a recent New York Times piece that “street style has become so popular that ‘real people’ are now dressing for the cameras.” Once an alternative to editorial spreads and ad campaigns produced by industry professionals, blogs that focus on a city’s particular fashion sense especially Scott Schuman’s The Sartorialist and Tommy Ton’s Jak & Jil have turned mainstream, spawning, as Welch argues, a “self-aware rather than accidental culture, like reality television.”
Street style debate
While the New York Times has wisely called on other voices to round out the street style debate from Paper Magazine editor Kim Hastreiter, who believes that true style defies globalization, to Interview Germany executive editor Adriano Sack, who says that the “idea that globalization might hurt street style is the fear of a saturated elite” I tend to side with Will Welch. I used to glean ideas from online photos snapped on the world’s hippest streets up until the pictures started looking the same: Brylcreemed dandy gentlemen with bicycles, Brad Goreski-types in horn-rimmed glasses and bowties, and fashion editors in the latest tranny heels. Enough.
In fact, in the span of three years, people who used to be mere names in a magazine’s staff box and familiar only to insiders such as Vogue Japan’s Anna Dello Russo and Elle’s Kate Lanphear have become celebrities themselves. Turning the cameras on those normally behind-the-scenes was a novelty at first, but now it just seems so contrived. A picture of Shala Monroque attending a runway presentation in Paris isn’t the most accurate depiction of street style, as she probably worked overtime choreographing her ensemble, practicing her poses to be noticed. (That said, I’ve been so frustrated that I didn’t even bother Googling her to find out who she is or what she does.)
Opposite of Mannequins
In February 2002, Nylon editor in chief Marvin Scott Jarrett defined street style as “the opposite of the mannequins in the store windows or the models cruising the catwalks. Street can be the suit-skirted banker rushing up Sixth Avenue or a 7-Eleven clerk taking a cigarette break in the parking lot.”
These days, as virtually every city has a blog dedicated to its street style, I’ve avoided sites by anyone with a book deal in favor of those by no-names with digital cameras. A lot of fashion followers look to Tokyo for inspiration, but I tend to find Japanese street style too clowny and defensive to be truly uplifting. So my clicking has led me to Hel-Looks, which documents the restrained but nonetheless original sartorial scene in the Finnish capital, and Copenhagen StreetStyle, which does the same for Denmark and other parts of Europe. I’ve also watched Bill Cunningham New York, a documentary about the cultural anthropologist who has been chronicling fashion trends for the Times’ Style section since 1978. “In Bill’s view, fashion begins with creative individuals and not ‘tastemakers,’” as Roger Ebert said in his review. To me, these resources, together with Street Chic, prove that street-bound strangers will always be where it’s at.
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