Tag Archives: street style
Teenage Precinct Shoppers: Nigel Shafran’s beauty street style
It’s weird how you don’t really get beauty street style blogs. I mean, there’s a bit on The Sartorialist and Vanessa Jackman but it’s not highlighted as such and I’m not so aware of beauty street style as ‘a thing’. And yet the changes in hair and make-up over the years are often more pronounced than in clothing trends. Continue reading
Watch this: a documentary about Fashion Week street style
I just watched Garage Magazine’s mini documentary on Style Bubble but in case you haven’t seen it, here it is again. Filming began a year ago and the result is a good 9-minute sum-up of the Fashion Week street style phenomenon. Tim Blanks makes most of the commentary but Imran Amed from Business of fashion is also featured, as is Susie Bubble and Phil Oh.
This London Fashion Week, I had a conversation with a well known street style photographer who mentioned that they have noticed a change. Some of their regulars have now decided they don’t want to be photographed, they’re actively ignoring street style photographers, even when in the past they were quite chummy. It’s not surprising to me. What die-hard fashionista wants to be seen embracing something once it’s been tainted with the naff brush? (I’m not saying street style is naff, but the bad publicity in this context could have that effect.)
Guest post: The newly-launched ‘& Other Stories’ celebrates individual (street) style
No-one does the high street better than the Brits, except possibly the Swedes! Well, H&M in particular. Launching today is H&M’s new brand, & Other Stories. Here’s the verdict from guest contributor, LSN Global retail editor, ALISON BISHOP
So, the new retail concept & Other Stories by H&M has finally launched (in London first, natch), and it seems there is room for another fashion retail concept on the high street. & Other Stories lives up to its premium product pitch in terms of ‘style over fast-fashion’. Continue reading
NYFW Nemo: When in doubt, style it out
Gotta tip my hat to Tommy Ton for these great photos of NYFW show-goers on Style.com…
Six years of blogging – the changing landscape
Well who’d have thunk it? Six years ago today, I started a fashion blog. This very one, in fact, albeit on a Blogspot platform with a slightly clunky white-text-on-black-background layout. If you scroll back far enough, you can see my early posts; embarrassing though they are, I’ve not deleted them as it’s good to remember the journey.
My six year anniversary coincides with a pithy New York Times T Magazine story by Suzy Menkes lamenting the blog mob and the changes in fashion media and critiquing. Do read it, it’s certainly thought provoking. Alas, Menkes does come across as slightly jaded in her disapproval. Flagging up the common practice of ‘bloggers’ (read: the Fashion Week style blogger elite) who get photographed in next season’s looks, often gifted by designers in exchange for coverage, she reminds us that real reporters don’t play the gifting game (or ‘bribery’ as she puts it). It’s a funny one I admit. On the one hand, why not help give young designers exposure by wearing their clothes, if it will give them a leg-up and boost your visual presence as well? On the other hand, when the pre- and post-show peacocking starts to get more attention than the shows themselves, then that clearly signals a change in how things are working. Is it dumbing down though? or is it just an evolution in how fashion is seen and consumed now?
Six years ago, no-one even considered any of this stuff. As a phenomenon, it simply didn’t exist yet. Instagram didn’t exist, Vine didn’t exist, Twitter was in its infancy and Anna Dello Russo was just another jobbing fashion editor. How would fashion have weathered the recessions were it not for fashion blogs, Fashion Week street style and the powerful role they played in opening up the fashion industry to the masses? More pertinent still; where will fashion, blogging and the street style strutters be in another six years time? I guess that’s for us to witness, while documenting the process…
Thanks for the last six years of support!
Image: Stefania Yarhi/Textstyles – NYT
Lahssan X Façonnable
I love what French label Lahssan has been doing with its deconstructed trench coats, favourited by the Tommy Tom set (Elisa Nalin, Natalie Joos et al) and influential stores like The Shop at Bluebird, Opening Ceremony and 10 Corso Como Tokyo).
To take his influence further, designer Dryce (one name only) has collaborated with Riviera heritage brand Façonnable to produce a capsule line of fun macs in Lichtenstein-esque primary-hued stripes. And naturally, he enlisted Tommy Ton and Elisa Nalin to shoot, style and model the look book. Watch out for the line when it arrives in Spring…
Street style old and new: Coggles and The Skartorialist
At the Coggles press day I discovered the brand has a two year old archive of on-the-street portraits taken by Nick Scaife. These images are very much about the person as much as their clothes, and Coggles has gone on to develop this idea by making short films about a few of its favourite subjects. Continue reading
Inside H&M’s summer magazine
The new H&M magazine is out and as usual it’s a cracking good read. Each issue has three 1000+ word features and this issue includes one of mine on the magic of fashion shows. That’s not the only reason it’s a good read though. Continue reading
Jimmy Choo and Look magazine launch social sharing sites
More on the street style/self-style phenomenon that only seems to be growing. Last week saw the launch of Jimmy Choo’s 24:7 Stylemakers which follows on from what Burberry did with Art Of The Trench and Armani did with Frames Of Your Life. Users of the 24:7 Stylemakers site upload pictures of themselves wearing Jimmy Choo either via the site itself or with Facebook/Instagram (using the #choo247 hashtag). Continue reading
Bill Cunningham: “I let the streets speak to me”
I was invited to the UK premier of the Bill Cunningham New York film last week and I’m happy to report it was as good as Vidal Sassoon The Movie and The September Issue. Right from the opening frames I was hooked. This documentary captures the essence of New York, New Yorkers and the enigmatic spirit of Cunningham. For decades he has been on the streets, snapping passers-by for the New York Times, then getting his 35mm films developed at a local store. His apartment in Carnegie Hall is crammed with filing cabinets and the most basic of beds, his ‘wardrobe’ is a few wire hangers and his bathroom is a communal one down the hall. At 82 he still scoots around town on a push bike with a bumbag round his waist and his camera bag over the shoulder.
For Bill it really is all about getting the shots and all about the clothes. The film also shows him recording his commentaries for the digital version of On The Street (this week he observes how New York men are sharpening up) where he nails the week’s observations in one take. The narrative running through the film hinges on his enforced relocation from his belove Carnegie Hall apartment to a newer building, which gives the film a bittersweet storyline. But overall it’s an honest and uplifting portrait of a man and a city with glimpses of the industry and some of its colourful characters.
Bill Cunningham New York will be released in select UK cinemas on March 16.
As a side note, I was rather taken with Mr Cunningham’s daily ‘uniform’ of chinos and blue-on-blue layers – Yves Klein workman’s jacket, sky blue oxford shirt and cornflower sweater-over-the-shoulders. Plus rain poncho and Sorel boots for inclement weather (which is when he gets his best photos). I’m quite partial to a rain poncho and a sweater over the shoulders myself, not to mention a bumbag or two. Ines De La Fressange paid her own homage to Bill at the couture shows a couple of weeks ago, where she donned a Cunningham-esque blue shirt and cap to photograph show-goers for Madame Figaro. Wonder if it’ll catch on?
[Images:Max Cook/Patrick Demarchelier/The Sartorialist/WWD]
