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The Fashion Outsider: The unceremonious downfall of ‘street’ style

It’s now more like a procession human of billboards.

Straight from the controversy of NYFW (and last week’s column), and straight into the amazingness of LFW! The buzzing streets of the seething metropolis are filled with energy and fashion and… bloggers getting paid to wear the same outfits by different high street brands. 

Hooray.

I’ve developed an unhealthy lack of interest in street style these days – and it’s not because of the ‘style’ portion. In fact, the ‘style’ is arguably better than ever… But that’s kind of my point. 

Street style is not really STREET style anymore, is it? It’s more like a procession human of billboards. Or an attention-seeking blogger runway of paid promotions and borrowed threads. Does that really excite people? Because I’m feeling barely a tingle…

Does anyone remember the good old days when bloggers used to wear clothes they actually owned? When styling was king – not branding? When street style was all about capturing the woman (or man), going about their daily business while delivering major #inspo – without major #collabs?

Perhaps my waning enthusiasm started at MSFW this year when a street style photographer pointed out that I was wearing a pair of pants that I already wore to VAMFF. Gasp!

It was odd to think that I had suddenly been weighed down by a strange expectation to deliver new #lewks every event – and the idea that if I had bought a pair of amazeballs pants I wouldn’t wear them repeatedly until they became so threadbare I was forced to unceremoniously throw them in the trash as I was physically restrained from still wearing them, stained with coffee grinds, declaring they were now ombre. 

But that’s another story.

Perhaps even more weird to me, was the expectation that I should have thought about my outfit THAT deeply before attending said event. 

I mean, I thought about it in the way that any normal person is like ‘yes, white lace flares and denim, that seems cool’ (it worked, don’t judge me), but not so deeply as to think ‘oh shiiiiit, I’ve worn these pants ONCE before, I wouldn’t dare wear them again! HOW EMBARASSMENT!’

Street style isn’t meant to be like this: a brand hiring a photographer and a blogger, then giving them outfits in order to manufacture images in a street setting. 

It’s not the literal ‘street’ that makes the genre, people. Otherwise there would be ‘white wall style’ and ‘empty carpark style’. And ‘look, I’m at Icebergs style’.

And so, I beg you, don’t give me sideways looks when you ask what brand I’m wearing and I reply ‘oh shit, I don’t know’, or ‘I bought it at a market in Bangkok’, or ‘I found it in my neighbours trash bin.’

But that’s also another story.

I’m not the weirdo here – you’re the one who approached me for a street style photo. I’m wearing something I found in my wardrobe. And I actually own it. And yes, I’ve worn it SEVERAL TIMES. 

And that’s about as #street as it gets. Word.

Follow Bianca’s confusing fashion journey (and see if you can spot the outfit she found in the trash, unless you’re her neighbour, in which case it absolutely is just a coincidence) over at @_thesecondrow.

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