Notes from New York Fashion Week Day Five

Outside Lincoln Center

The last 4 days of Fashion Week have annihilated any lingering doubt I may have had that blogging has changed the fashion industry in a big way. Bloggers now comprise a significant portion of a given show's audience. They pose for the cameras outside. They mix with editors, models, and journalists inside, pose for selfies with designers. They Instagram the whole thing for their base of followers to experience vicariously. Some insiders might resent their presence there, suspecting they haven't earned their spot in the industry in quite the way they themselves had, but they more or less accept the reality that bloggers aren't going anywhere. And by not going anywhere, I mean not going anywhere. They are standing on the sidewalk snapping photos in front of the building, and if you want to get to your next show, you're just going to have to pass through them.Bloggers take up more square footage of Fashion Week than any other demographic.

Outside Tommy Hilfiger. I love that she brought an Edgar Allen Poe book with her. Literature = fashion.

But the question remains: has blogging changed the fashion industry for the better? The jury's still out on that one. Clearly the industry is a more democratic place than it once was, at least on a superficial level. More opinions are heard. More attention gluttons share the spotlight. But blogging has taken an elite cultural institution and turned it into a three ring circus. Hundreds of dolled up wannabes loiter at Lincoln Center in hopes they'll be noticed. Dozens of street style bloggers chase down fashionistas outside runway shows. It's enough to make me a little bit nostalgic for some old-fashioned elitism. 

Outside Tommy Hilfiger

 Maintaining your dignity shooting Fashion Week is a tricky business. Lucky I had this woman's hat and t-shirt to remind me. 

Outside Tommy Hilfiger

My itinerary for Day Five started at Tommy Hilfiger at Pier 94. A number of bloggers and photographers (often, but not always, one in the same) were already gathered. We leaned against the railings, fixed our eyes on the the taxi cabs pulling up, and waited for someone — anyone — interesting to show up. And when they did, we went to work, stopping them in front of the metal gratings or along the bike path that traverses the West Side Highway. The light was terrible, direct sun pouring down on us, casting heavy shadows across faces, but we shot anyway, grumbling about how much it was going to suck to edits these photos later.  

Outside Tommy Hilfiger

Then I hopped in a cab with Dee of Racked, Stela of Streetstyle by Stela, and a German woman named Devon whose blog name I never caught, to head all the way downtown to Theysken's Theory on Wooster Street to catch the exit. Shortly after we arrived, model of the moment Hanne Gaby Odiele (literally) ran by. Cameras snapped frantically, while construction workers from the site across the street looked on, chuckling and making comments. I don't know what's going on with the city of New York right now, but nearly every fashion show I've attended has had a construction site at least partially obstructing it. It's made for some interesting clashes of cultures as construction workers alternately watch with fascination and contempt, occasionally catcalling photographers with the never-funny: "Hey, I'll let you take my picture. For free!" Lots of people seem to think this is a funny jibe, including various dudes going by in taxis. It never gets much of a response. 

Outside Theysken's Theory

After Theysken's Theory it was time to get lunch. My frequent Fashion Week co-traveler, Dee (whose pictures from Fashion Week you can see in the street style section of Racked.com) was feeling worn out, and I was feeling jaded and bored. Fashion Week runs you down. She's been shooting all day, starting around 9am and going until about 8pm, then doing a two-hour commute home, photo-editing until 4 in the morning, and getting up at 6 to head back out into the action. this was the first time all week she's had a meal before 8pm. And since, frankly, we didn't care that much about Karen Walker or any of the other shows going on, we hit a diner for a proper fucking meal. Refreshed and rested, we cabbed it back up to 33rd St for Derek Lam. 

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Derek Lam was the usual crew shooting the usual suspects, the same street style bloggers shooting the same mix of personal style bloggers and certified industry insiders. It didn't take me long to start getting antsy. I shot these people today already, I thought, at Tommy Hilfiger and Theory. Yawn. So I chatted with a couple of bloggers, Chérmelle the "coffeetographer" and Isaac from Breaking Fad, and hit up Yvan Rodic, The Face Hunter, for an interview. Hopefully we'll make that happen tomorrow. I like the way that guy works. He strolls in and out of the action, stops a few girls, introduces himself, snaps their picture on his point-and-shoot Leica, then heads out somewhere else, utterly unruffled. He doesn't get caught up in the tumult of it all.

Outside Phillip Lim

This woman was perhaps the highlight of Phillip Lim, her giant afro drawing cameras from a couple of hundred feet away. Plus, she seemed to be having a great time being photographed. She didn't have that bored, "please, enough already" expression that is becoming such a fixture of Fashion Week.

Outside Phillip Lim

After Derek Lam, I was through with the street fashion photography thing. I wanted to photograph some ordinary weirdos, people without big names, whose egos had not yet been artificially inflated. So I headed up to Lincoln Center, knowing fully well that no big shows were happening there, and got some nice shots of people who just looked interesting. That's when you can have real human interaction, exchange cards, chat a bit, feel like you aren't selling some part of your soul in the process. I hung with my Philly compatriots Big Rube of Street Gazing and Quenton of Avenue Swank, and met Angel from Angel's POV, one of the few active street style blogs in the South. He describes himself as an "urban anthropologist" and was immediately on board with my project. He feels like he's learned an enormous amount about human nature from his street style work. "I can predict what people are going to do now," he told me. I wouldn't go that far for myself, but I have learned some things from my own street style experiences. For one, people's narrative description of their lives and their lives as they live and experience them seldom match up. Style is less about who you are than the story you tell about yourself.

Outside Lincoln Center

My favorite shots of the day were from Lincoln Center and the way there. I don't know who the people I shot there were, but I liked their photos better than the rising starlet throw-away shots I got at Tommy Hilfiger and Phillip Lim. I keep learning the lesson over and over again at Fashion Week that it's always best to go your own way, listen to your own voice. But it's hard sometimes to hear it amidst the cacophony of other voices at Fashion Week. 

Outside Lincoln Center