The Modern State of Street Style New York Fashion Week begins today. In anticipation of this fall’s fashion week, GQ published an article yesterday in which they try to anticipate the style innovations we’ll be seeing on the streets this week. Of course, the entire article is a satire. Illustrations of seemingly unaware individuals casually talking on the phone or walking to the coffee shop in their ankle bandannas and ties that double as pocket squares. It’s a rather fed-up and frustrated look at the current state of street style menswear. GQ is apparently well tired with what they’re seeing. Just last month they published a similar piece with similar sentiments. “Street style is no longer organic. Nowadays people flood the streets outside fashion week shows waiting to get photographed.” honestly, gq keeps taking shots at ankle bandannas, but i don’t think they’re impossible to pull off. just not very easy. In all reality, exactly how true is that statement? It’s doubtless that people lurk outside fashion shows “casually” eying Tommy Ton, inviting a photograph. But is it true to say that street style is no longer organic? Was it ever so? When Bill Cunningham first started photographing New York’s most stylish in the 1970s, there really was no such thing as street style. But it didn’t take long for Cunningham to become known as the “street style photographer,” and it didn’t take long before people started dressing for him. Even Anna Wintour admits to it. Fast forward to 2005. Scott Schumann, inspired by Cunningham, starts a blog called The Sartorialist that looks to do what Cunningham had been doing for decades. The only difference is that the goal is photographing everyday people. With the increased accessibility of the internet came the increased popularity of blogging, and soon after Schumann helps spawn countless new blogs started by would be street photographers. bill cunningham, in the same blue jacket and bike he’s owned for the last 40 years This was the “mini-revolution” GQ was talking about. That span of three or so years where street style actually felt organic. Actually was organic. But alas. With accessibility comes over-saturation. With over-saturation comes redundancy. With redundancy comes people trying to hard. And with people trying to hard comes GQ publishing articles venting about their frustrations. It’s sad really. It’s sad to think that street style is, in theory, about capturing people in their natural habitat. About portraying some sort of unplanned, sincere moment. If that’s the case, how did it come to this? The answer is that it didn’t come to this. This is the way it’s always been. Aside from those few years after Bill Cunningham first started capturing people on the street, and the few years of glorious sincerity that we seem to be on the tail end of, street style is always been fairly contrived and fairly exclusive. It’s sad to say it. But the most sad part of it all is that it’s true. So don’t ask how it came to this. You’d only be lying to yourself. *Note: Despite their frustrations with the state of street style menswear, GQ has by no means pledged to do anything to help solve the problem of over-saturation in the game. As a matter of fact, earlier today they published their first collection of shots from NYFW. There are presumed to be no shots of outrageously dressed individuals.
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The Modern State of Street Style

New York Fashion Week begins today. In anticipation of this fall’s fashion week, GQ published an article yesterday in which they try to anticipate the style innovations we’ll be seeing on the streets this week. Of course, the entire article is a satire. Illustrations of seemingly unaware individuals casually talking on the phone or walking to the coffee shop in their ankle bandannas and ties that double as pocket squares. It’s a rather fed-up and frustrated look at the current state of street style menswear. GQ is apparently well tired with what they’re seeing. Just last month they published a similar piece with similar sentiments. “Street style is no longer organic. Nowadays people flood the streets outside fashion week shows waiting to get photographed.”

honestly, gq keeps taking shots at ankle bandannas, but i don’t think they’re impossible to pull off. just not very easy.

In all reality, exactly how true is that statement? It’s doubtless that people lurk outside fashion shows “casually” eying Tommy Ton, inviting a photograph. But is it true to say that street style is no longer organic? Was it ever so? When Bill Cunningham first started photographing New York’s most stylish in the 1970s, there really was no such thing as street style. But it didn’t take long for Cunningham to become known as the “street style photographer,” and it didn’t take long before people started dressing for him. Even Anna Wintour admits to it.

Fast forward to 2005. Scott Schumann, inspired by Cunningham, starts a blog called The Sartorialist that looks to do what Cunningham had been doing for decades. The only difference is that the goal is photographing everyday people. With the increased accessibility of the internet came the increased popularity of blogging, and soon after Schumann helps spawn countless new blogs started by would be street photographers.

bill cunningham, in the same blue jacket and bike he’s owned for the last 40 years

This was the “mini-revolution” GQ was talking about. That span of three or so years where street style actually felt organic. Actually was organic. But alas. With accessibility comes over-saturation. With over-saturation comes redundancy. With redundancy comes people trying to hard. And with people trying to hard comes GQ publishing articles venting about their frustrations.

It’s sad really. It’s sad to think that street style is, in theory, about capturing people in their natural habitat. About portraying some sort of unplanned, sincere moment. If that’s the case, how did it come to this?

The answer is that it didn’t come to this. This is the way it’s always been. Aside from those few years after Bill Cunningham first started capturing people on the street, and the few years of glorious sincerity that we seem to be on the tail end of, street style is always been fairly contrived and fairly exclusive.

It’s sad to say it. But the most sad part of it all is that it’s true.

So don’t ask how it came to this. You’d only be lying to yourself.

*Note: Despite their frustrations with the state of street style menswear, GQ has by no means pledged to do anything to help solve the problem of over-saturation in the game. As a matter of fact, earlier today they published their first collection of shots from NYFW. There are presumed to be no shots of outrageously dressed individuals.

7 Notes/ Hide

  1. newtimer said: oh so true… smh.
  2. thecreativeroutine posted this