What Is Street Style, Really?

Learned poses, expressions gleaned from models, borrowed clothes and on top of that a luxurious handbag. Anyone else enjoying it?

- Klára Jindrová And Radhika Bhalla

Is street style, which today seems more like an extension of fashion shows, still authentic? And who truly has influence today? Suzy Menkes, the British fashion critic, put it quite sophisticatedly in her essay for the New York Times, where she offers a fitting metaphor of crows and peacocks. "Someone once called us black crows us fashion people who gathered in front of an abandoned, crumbling building downtown, wearing Comme des Garçons or Yohji Yamamoto uniforms. Whose funeral is this?" passers-by whispered to each other with a mixture of caring and perverted interest, while we slowly lined up in front of some cool, underground show," recalls Menkes of the 1990s.

I And she continues: "Today, people look more like peacocks than crows. They pose and show off in dresses with various prints, balance on spider legs in club sandwich-high boots, or thigh-high boots, and hide under intricately-shaped coats decorated with 3D flowers." It must be added that Suzy Menkes wrote the observation back in 2013, almost ten years ago, when street style was still in its infancy for many of us, and represented fresh inspiration.

Backtrack to a century ago, and some exceptional personal style can be gleaned from the images of attendees at the Royal Ascot race-Lady Bomanji and Mrs Bolton in saris worn with elbow-length gloves, little umbrellas in tow, embroidered round-toes completing the look. And with the onset of photography in the 19th century, ethnographic images of the women and men of India served as snapshots for the British Raj.

Today, these serve as clues to understanding the now vanishing traditions and everyday, street fashion of local regions and a time gone by.

Street style, then, is not entirely new. And not so purposeless, either.