The desire for street style is back (but this time it’s local)

In the beginning it was Scott Schuman. In 2005, a photographer in search of identity, holding his camera, had the intuition to capture the best outfits of ordinary people around New York with the intent of creating, quoting the words of the pioneer, “a dialogue with double meaning on the world of fashion and its relationship with everyday life ». Now just over fifteen years after the blog was founded The Sartorialist, the desire for street style is reborn and it’s done local, branching out into a network of Instagram pages born along the lines of Parisians in Paris what else is not of a way of describing cities through clothes and those who wear them.

Londoners in London, Madrilenians in Madrid but also Tehranners In Tehran, Melbournians in Melbourne, just to mention some emblematic cases of this rather recent phenomenon: a global intertwining of mutual likes and mentions in which Italy is the master. In fact, it is along the boot that the trend has fertile branched starting from Milanese in Milan: follow closely people from Rome, Bologna, Naples, Florence, Venice and Turin and other cities such as, for example, Modena and Genoa, which in the meantime have secured the brand while waiting to debut in the arena.

If we were to appeal to our rationality, it might seem at least strange that this glimmer of vitality came in a year marred by a world pandemic but with the catwalks temporarily closed and the fashion industry being restructured, it is perhaps natural to think that all that energy felt the need to find an outlet by starting to feed onauthenticity that comes from the street.

The elements that determined the success of all the adventures gemmed by the experience of Schuman’s blog are the same but now they reappear around the world changed in sign. The cumbersome presence of the photographer fades in favor ofanonymity of those who post. The models no longer look straight at the lens but are unknowingly and preferably portrayed from behind with the smartphone as they plow the asphalt with their stride. There is no brand that chooses who to pose and even less professionals placed in strategic fashion places ready to immortalize people who could not wait to be immortalized, dressed from head to toe by designer labels or brands in search of luck: the artifice in these early experiments would be interpreted as a betrayal.

In this return to origins style is back, that quid in addition it becomes an irresistible and uncalculated inspiration. Who mail looks like the Narrator for Gossip Girl: who ends up in the viewfinder is spotted but there is no malice in this case, just a jolt of pleasure that deserves to be shared. Reached by Vogue France, the creator of Parisians in Paris who does not want to divulge his name, says that spontaneity is the key to the project. “I didn’t want to make this page too refined, I want it to be as spontaneous as the looks I encounter every day,” he says, thus underlining the abyss that exists with the first season of street style and this one. “I do not want that Parisians in Paris become a place where brands and people are mentioned: the subject is style»He continues, also adding that there is no prohibition on mentioning or tagging comments.

The first post of Parisians in Paris, the page that today has almost 150 thousand followers, dates back to 10 October 2018 but it is in 2020 that it explodes just when the mask is no longer a bizarre accessory but begins to become an appendage of our face. Last autumn the Italian craze broke out with Milanese in Milan which with its 20,000-odd followers exceeds 14,6,000 Londoners in London. In Europe, i Romans in Rome with more than 6 thousand followers, almost 3 thousand more than the Madrid equivalent. The United States are the rear in this ideal race that is played on the street with sneakers, amphibians, oversized coats and checkered jackets: the New Yorkers in New York with only 26 posts and 275 followers, there are attempts a Houston it’s at New Orleans who knows if they will ever have their moment.

Scrolling one page after another, at the bottom, we realize how small this planet we inhabit. The Ugg keep your feet warm in Madrid as well as in Milan as well as the camel coat gives the outfit a touch of class even when paired with one chunky sneakers in London as in Rome. Comfort becomes chic and vice versa in Venice as in Paris and there fur (true or synthetic) is fine with i Levi’s as well as the All Star it is their death with the long dress.

To define this new and old phenomenon, it is more appropriate to brush up on the adjective glocal: an outfit seen on Instagram belongs to the city that expressed it but also becomes a bit ours when it titillates our desire, suddenly making that bag or scarf worn in Barcelona as well as in Tel Aviv indispensable. And the challenge becomes even tastier where the absence of the cart where to store a purchase leaves the field free to the imagination, to the search or to the recovery of some forgotten piece in the wardrobe that is suddenly rediscovered indispensable.

Basically it is a game born from below which still maintains a high degree of purity. You can choose which side to take, whether to put yourself in the shoes of those who select the best looks or those of those who hope to be spotted. Furthermore, if it has not yet been opened, you can inaugurate the page of your city by having fun hunting outfits to be published in complete anonymity, while at the same time becoming prey to the curiosity of an entire community. The new generation street style is a breath of fresh air in these dark times. An uncontaminated prairie in which to get lost, canceling the limits within which we find ourselves confined. There is to enjoy it all. As long as it lasts, of course.