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Abstract
This article begins with a long-lens view of the street style blog to see where it fits in the broader frame of fashion photography. From a starting point of uncertainty, the article investigates whether images on street style blogs are indeed fashion photographs or simply, to use Nancy Hall-Duncan’s term, “fashion gesture.” It then follows a path that traces the commercial imperative of the fashion photograph and unfolds how this operates in one of the most successful—and earliest—iterations of the street style blog, Scott Schuman’s The Sartorialist. It does this via one of its “particularities”—the interactive contributions of user-viewers on the comment roll. Described as a “living fabric” by Schuman, this interactive commentary mirrors Roland Barthes’ two distinct representations of the garment—image clothing and written clothing. An analysis of the comment roll, it is suggested, reveals the “backstage” machinations of how the fashion image constructs or invents a narrative of desire around a fashion object and thus contributes to our understanding of the fashion photograph and its sometimes opaque world.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. An early player in the street style blogging phenomenon was Hel Looks, created by Liisa Jokinen and Sampo Karjalainen in July 2005. Soon after, Tommy Ton began his blog, Jak & Jil (now ceased) and in September, Scott Schuman launched The Sartorialist. The nightlife style blog, The Cobrasnake, posted images of people out and about after dark from 2003.
2. Marco Pedroni classifies bloggers slightly differently in his study of the Italian market, where fashion blogging arrived later and was thus underpinned by an ethos of commercialism from the beginning. Here, “A-listers” are viewed as offering a model to be emulated by “newcomers” (Pedroni Citation2015).
3. See Rocamora (Citation2011, Citation2013), Titton (Citation2010, Citation2013), Pham (Citation2011) and Berry (Citation2010). See also the Special Issue of Fashion Theory (2015, 19 [2]) devoted to the topic of fashion blogging.
4. In their introduction to the Special Issue of Fashion Theory dedicated to the topic of fashion blogs, editors Emanuela Mora and Agnès Rocamora write that “the blogosphere is neither inherently democratizing and empowering nor simply fatally bound to bow down to the forces of commercialism” (Citation2015, 153). Historically, the democratization of fashion has made it more widely available, more accessible and more attainable. Thus, the putative democratizing impulse of street style and fashion blogs confronts a paradox at the point where it bumps up against the market; in short, it sells more clothes. For a nuanced discussion of the question of the Internet as a space of open democracy and a tool of change in the social, cultural and political sphere, see Titton (Citation2010), Pham (Citation2011), Rocamora (Citation2012) and Lewis (Citation2013).
5. Bill Cunningham’s weekly photographic column, “On the Street,” in the New York Times and the head-to-toe “straight-up,” published in the British magazine i-D, are the two most commonly cited reference points, but there are others. Cunningham’s column consists of a photomontage of current trends on New York streets; the i-D “straight-up” documented street style worn by punk and New Wave kids in London. For an informative and succinct account of street fashion photography, see Titton (Citation2013).
6. Unfortunately, efforts to secure permission for use of images discussed in this article have proved unsuccessful. Paulo Roversi’s “Joker’s Wild” editorial for British Vogue can be viewed online with a keyword search.
7. The image and accompanying comments can be viewed online at: http://www.thesartorialist.com/photos/on-the-street-the-nine-streets-amsterdam/
8. Some users suggest that the figure is Anna Dello Russo, one of the stars of the blogorazzi, whose online celebrity as editor-at-large and creative consultant for Vogue Japan has further blurred the lines between model and stylist, between old and new media. The image and accompanying comments can be viewed can be viewed online at:
http://www.thesartorialist.com/photos/why-cant-i-buy-gloves-right-now/
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Karen de Perthuis
Karen de Perthuis teaches in the School of Humanities and Communication Arts at Western Sydney University. She has published in the areas of material culture, cinematic costume design and the representation of fashion. Currently she is working on a monograph that analyses the fashionable ideal to expand our understanding of models, bodies and images in fashion.