jak and jil - various my favourite things including maya villiger, christine centenera, stevie dance, tara vasev, francesco comminelli.
There is much talk about regarding where street style is headed. It was a veritable explosion into the fashion stratosphere - a sartorial paradigm shift - that moved the focus away from the magazines, or at least away from the pages of the magazines, and onto the streets. Trends were forged on the pavements of Milan, the corner of Spring and Broadway, the end of Brick Lane. The power over the control over what people wore fell squarely into the hands of the street style photographers (notably here, not the people themselves, because, just like that seminal logic riddle, if a fashionista walks through new york but the sart doesn't take a picture of her, does anyone care?) and not the magazine editors. Style stars were made - Kate Lanphear, Taylor Tomasi, Giovanna Battaglia, Anna Dello Russo - who all owe their incredible popularity to the photos lensed of them by Garance Dore, Scott Schuman, Tommy Ton, Hanneli Mustaparta and Maya Villiger. Books were made, exhibitions curated, articles written, first class flights around the world to various fashion weeks produced, tee shirts commemorated, collaborations announced. And now, on the brink of the Spring/Summer 2011 shows, we reflect.
Where is street style headed? Here is my theory. Street style is going to pull back, and then zoom in. Tommy Ton has it right, in fact, Tommy Ton had it right all along. Focus on the details, because they are what make an outfit. The single polka-dot print in a wardrobe of chambray. The contrast between tan demeulemeester and tan limbs. The supple grain to an alexander wang donna hobo. the spectrum of denim. A line of heels, each more extragagant than the next. A box of watches where they writhe around looking incredibly like snakes (for some reason, that's what I thought about). This is where the beauty in fashion comes through. In fashion the big picture is all about the little things, funnily enough. The best part of Vogue US? It's not the editorials, often stale and stiff, but the Vogue Edit section at the back where Meredith Melling Burke brings her classic Americana touch to bringing together items under $250 to themes - Christmas Gifts, Wedding ideas, summer necessities, even Blogger must-haves in the March issue. The best part of street-style for me isn't the whole of an outfit because I've always been interested in the close ups. I want to see the shoes, the jacket, the jewellery, the sunglasses - and even further, the watch, the tattoo, the nail polish, the lipstick. Because - this is the thing, really - for me looking at street-style isn't about slavishly copying an entire look. You have the magazines for that, and besides, it's not very original. Looking at street-style is a process of inspiration. What inspires you about the image, whether it be shoes or a silk shirt, and then building upon that yourself.
With a good detail shot you can guess the rest of the outfit yourself. You can see an image of, oh, say, vintage american tee shirts, and then add yourself a pair of battered Levis 501s, a scryscraper pair of statement heels, a big, brash piece of jewellery and tousled hair. Details are the building blocks of an outfit. Break that down - tee shirt, jeans, shoes, necklace, hair. Or even further - the slogan on a tee shirt, the rip in a jean, the buckle on a shoe, the clasp on a necklace, the part of a hair style - and you have yourself a set of photos that is at once both incredibly revealing and yet tantalisingly out of reach. Who is to say you couldn't split those pictures up into 5 different sets and they wouldn't make sense? Separately, they're just pictures, they're just clothes. But together they make an outfit. But, just like pieces of a puzzle, you don't need to see them all together to know that they could work together. Detail shots like these ones work in a way very similar to how you dress yourself. You take the various "pieces" of your wardrobe and you put them together to make an "outfit". The puzzle of getting dressed. Easier for some than it is for others. But still the same for all.
It is this that streetstyle is tapping into. Maybe we don't all work for magazines, maybe we don't all have the body of a teenage supermodel, maybe we don't all have the bank account of an actress. But we do all get dressed. Fashion, in more ways than one, is life. Everyday we get dressed, and everyday billions of people around do the same thing. Why we choose certain things and get dressed in a certain way is partly personality, partly imagination, partly inspiration, partly culture. The new street-style, heralded by Tommy Ton, but you can see it seeping into garance and others, understands this perfectly. The new street-style wants to let us into other people's wardrobes - albeit other fabulous people's wardrobes like christine centenera - so we can see how and, here's the most important bit, why they dress themselves in a particular way. And that is where street-style is headed. It is moving away from merely showing us what happens, in other words, what people are wearing, to showing us why people wear what they do. And that really is far more interesting.
This is my 600th post. Who would have though Capture the Castle would have gone this far - certainly not me. Here's to all of you who come here, look, think and most of all - read. That's what I set this blog up for initially, so I could write and write and get it all out. Well, I certainly have. I'm ready for my close up.
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