For my Independent Media class, my professor gave us our final project assignment: to come up with a startup for a journalistic outlet. When thinking about how to approach the assignment, I brainstormed all of my interests and thought about what kinds of websites I usually go to. Every morning I visit refinery29.com and Style.com as a way to have a relaxing morning. I read articles about fashion, food, and current events in the arts and fashion world. I also visit the New York Times to get a well rounded sense of the hard news of the day. I also have my own blog, a lookbook, dedicated to my interest for fashion. Lookbook is a website that anyone can be apart of. It features international bloggers who post photos of their outfits that day. Some become very invested in it, posting everyday and developing a large audience, while others who seldom post never seem to develop an audience. I’ve noticed something interesting about lookbook that seems to speak for the fashion industry.
Lookbook prides itself for featuring “street style.” This is a term used a lot to describe the styles of average people walking around on the street. Therefore “street style” implies spontaneity. The problem with lookbook and portraying “Street style” is that it doesn’t seem to be spontaneous. People take photos of themselves (or sometimes have professional photographers) take photos of them in an outfit they chose specifically for a new post. People don’t usually dress themselves with the intention of blogging their outfits of the day, making lookbook a problematic site for depicting street style. Most of the top bloggers are fashion experts and wear brand names.
I’ve always been really interested in street style because it’s where I find inspiration for my own style. I sit in coffee shops and glance over East Villagers wearing funky clothes. I think Tommy Ton does a good job at capturing street style because he goes around major fashion capitals and takes candid photographs of people’s outfits. However, Tommy Ton’s photographs are definitely more present during fashion week when fashionistas show off their couture and luxury brands.
I would love to create a blog that redefines street style and explore authentic street style world wide from people of different socioeconomic backgrounds. It might be interesting to create a photo based blog in which street style from different countries are posted, showing traditional clothing from various countries. I think Western culture tends to appropriate other cultural traditions without sufficient knowledge about them. It would be interesting to create a site that was grounded in a culture and educated its audience on how traditional clothing is actually worn in a country instead of how a Western culture might wear it.