It’s a chilly autumn morning and for the last 45 minutes a tiny creature in semi-sheer, PVC dress and some enormous heels has been walking (hobbling, actually) in circles around the same seven metres squared of pavement. You’d be forgiven for thinking that she was lost – and utterly freezing – were it not for the doggedly determined look on her face.
Eventually, one of the 20 or so photographers who have been lining the pavement puts out his cigarette and exasperatingly asks the young woman if he could take her picture. In an instant, the other burly men holding SLRs burst into life and follow suit, manically clicking away despite the fact this poor woman has been parading herself in front of the bastards for the best part of an hour without any of them so much as looking up.
No, this isn’t a deleted scene of a bad trip from *Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas – *it’s the courtyard in Somerset House where London Fashion Week has been hosted since 2009. Otherwise known as ‘the street style pit’.
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In its infancy, street style was heralded as finally democratising the fashion world, taking the influencers out of the ateliers and onto the street. Starting with Bill Cunningham, the genre exploded all over the world and is now probably the most instant, viral and addictive form of fashion photography – especially online.
But not everyone is that pleased with street style’s dominance. In 2013 style editor Suzy Menkes wrote an essay called ‘The Circus of Fashion’ for The New York Timesin which she lambasted the crowds of people who hang around outside various Fashion Weeks hoping to get their picture taken. She suggested that the street style stars were overshadowing the main event – what was actually happening on the catwalk. ‘We were once described as “black crows”, but today, the people outside fashion shows are more like peacocks than crows,’ she wrote.
If you need any indication of just how deeply this ‘peacocking’ has entered into the mainstream psyche, then you need look no further than London Fashion Week. Two things became very clear to me during the day I spent at Somerset House – firstly that I was massively underdressed and secondly, that the vast majority of people lingering outside the Fashion Week tent are normal (if a bit more dressed up) members of the public – including the street style photographers themselves.
Five of the SLR-wielding men I spoke to weren’t hired by anyone to be there – they weren’t even hoping to sell the pictures as freelance – they were just amateur photographers who had turned up on the day wanting to get some pictures of pretty girls in pretty dresses. Which is quite creepy when you think about it.
Five of the street style photographers were just amateur photographers who had turned up on the day wanting to get some pictures of pretty girls in pretty dresses. Which is quite creepy when you think about it.
A huge number of the girls I spoke to weren’t even actually going to any of the shows – they were there with the express purpose of getting snapped for the street style blogs. Fii Cudrun is a 21 year-old student who has aspirations of becoming a fashion photographer and blogger. She was at Somerset House for the whole day and will be for the entirety of LFW week despite having no ticket.
‘I woke up this morning knowing that I wanted to get my picture taken today, as well us suck up the energy of the place,’ she tells The Debrief. ‘I care a lot about how I portray myself as a person through my clothes and street style is part of that. I spend a ridiculous amount on Tumblr looking at fashion pictures, but who doesn’t? I’m planning on coming every day of Fashion Week so I meticulously planned my outfits, which took about a week. Hopefully, I’ll catch a couple of the photographers’ eye.’
Iszy Gammon, a 20-year-old fashion intern who did actually have tickets, explains the hunger that many people attending Fashion Week feel about making the street style blogs. ‘Anyone who goes to Fashion Week gets dressed hoping to get photographed by a street style photographer. If you don’t then don’t even go there, you’re in the wrong place,’ she explains to The Debrief.
‘I wrecked my bedroom getting ready this morning, but as long as I look good I don’t care. I’m here all day so I’m hoping that I’ll get snapped, but I can’t walk around in front of the photographers the whole time because I do have to intern. But making a profile for yourself is part of what it takes to get a job in fashion now – it’s important to have a presence on the street style blogs.’
Those who were crossing the Somerset House courtyard to work were either reluctant to talk to me because they were so stressed or are pretty cynical about street style in general. Lydia Birgani, who runs thefashionhub.com, was resolute in her response when I asked her if she ever gets dressed up especially for the cameras.
‘Absolutely not. No. Never,’ she said. ‘I think a lot of people dress up in a risk-taking way, but I take issue with that because it’s not actually their personal style, they’re only doing it to get on the street style blogs. There is a culture of people coming without tickets to the shows just to get photographed, but it’s not about them, the event is about celebrating the designers and the showrooms.’
She disagrees with it but Lydia can certainly see the motivation. ‘There’s a lot of money behind street style,’ she explains. ‘It’s not just amateurs – there’s also a lot of money behind street style. Photographers are well-paid and the bloggers who are getting photographed often make a decent wage from being a “face” that people recognise, so of course they will do anything to make sure they’re snapped at Fashion Week. It’s all about the money.’
The photographers we spoke to were reluctant to talk numbers on the record, but they did say that the number of non-professional, street-style photographers who have flooded the market are undercutting the value of the pictures and that the genre is at risk of dying because of oversaturation – an indication of how desirable the job actually is.
For all the cynicism that now heralds street style photography, it’s impossible not to sense the excitement of everyone attending LFW and it’s easy to see why people might be intoxicated by the process. Despite the fact that street style photography has now reached critical mass, for many of the young people I spoke to, it still feels like their way in to a community which can often feel closed to them.
Amy Heart, an 18-year-old intern put it best: ‘Everyone in the shows are jaded and just pretend like they’re not having a good time or they don’t care, but I’m genuinely excited when someone takes my picture because it makes me feel special – like I was a model for a moment or something. It’s easy to be cynical about fashion, but really, what’s so wrong with that?’
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Pictures: Getty, Jackson Payne
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.