Fashion Month has arrived! A medley of New York, London, Milan and Paris shows will preview what is to come in stores this spring. The money might be on the runway, but all eyes are turned to the streets as fashion’s finest march through the city in outfits especially created for each Fashion Week.
Street style makes up about 40 percent of the excitement of fashion week, another 40 percent is the shows, 15 percent is about who you see and five percent is exploring whatever city fashion week takes place in and documenting it all on Instagram.
While the clothes that go down the runway are important, they do little to answer the age-old question of, “What do I wear tomorrow?” Street style is one of the single most influential parts of the fashion industry because, let’s face it, we can’t all wear designer dresses paired with $10,000 heels and a bag that has a year-long waitlist. However, we can wear ripped jeans, a cool top, a leather jacket and the latest it-girl bag (which happens to be a bucket bag).
Street style is basically that; it’s fashion as seen on real people on the street. Over the years, it has become increasingly well documented by photographers like Tommy Ton of Style.com, Scott Schuman of The Sartorialist and, most famously, Bill Cunningham of the New York Times. These photographers capture the trends of the hour and tell a story about wearable and semi-affordable fashion. The street style phenomenon is encouraged by fashion magazines and fostered by fashion bloggers and celebrities, but the fashion world is still struggling to balance street style and runway looks as both are detrimental to the fashion industry.
Fashion Week/Month runways cycles in and out, but street style never ends.
