Real people have always been good at adapting high street and designer styles in an attempt to make them reflect their own personality, but this is a fact that has not always been recognised by top designer brands. Now the tide seems to be shifting. With the help of prominent figures championing street styles, the tastes and preferences of stylish urban people is beginning to prove a greater source of inspiration for designers.
The Sartorialist, aka Scott Schuman, is often thought responsible for kick starting this movement. The photographer started out as a blogger who wanted to take photographs that captured the sartorial tastes of real people and is now considered one of the top influences in design. By travelling around the world to snap stylish pictures of real people from locations such as Beijing, Berlin, Stockholm and Milan, Schuman presented the styles that stuck with and mattered to design savvy shoppers everywhere.
The continued popularity of Schuman’s photography, he has released a book and guest blogs for both GQ and style.com, indicates that not only are on-street his fashion shoots raising attention amongst designers searching for ways to make their clothing relevant for real people, but his pictures have also tapped into the desires of the general clothes buying public.
By photographing people from all around the world, wearing clothes from a real mixture of designers and high street influences, Schuman has given these street styles a platform and therefore allows people to feel justified in hunting out the style that suits them best and creating it for themselves.
Described as a pioneer of fashion photography in the blog form, Schuman’s subjects range from people he passes in the street to fashion celebrities such as Karl Lagerfeld as he attempts to chronicle the changing styles and tastes of the 21st century. He described his hunt as a way of trying to document the way that fashion designers looked at people when they looked at the street.
Schuman doesn’t limit his choices to particular styles, instead his is all inclusive and it may be this that allows people of all tastes to enjoy perusing his pictures and finding style tips where they may not have expected them. For example, he’s as happy shooting skaters in mens hoodies and baggy jeans as he is well dressed office workers and perfectly groomed pensioners – and his level playing field has certainly given the fashion world something to think about.