In an interview with photographer, Phil Oh, he tells us how he’s noticed the saturation of the street style market. A few years ago about 15 photographers would attend fashion weeks to cover the latest looks of bloggers and celebrities. However, the number of them is now at about 250 photographers for one single show. Now there are more photographers than people attending the show.
One of the reasons for this explosion of new photographers is that cameras are more affordable than ever which means it is much easier to enter the industry. Photographer, Katz Sinding, who made up to 20’000 dollars per big publication, in a good month was scared, for the first time in his life, that he wouldn’t have any clients. The problem is that there is so much competition nowadays that if they don’t do a publication there will always be a new kid that will do it for free. That is what terrifies “original” photographers the most.
Vogue and W magazine were the first to recognize street style as a way to lure their readers. Now it has become a main part of every fashion week. However, the status of street style is changing due to social media like Instagram and websites like Net-à-porter. Bloggers don’t need photographers to publish their picture online as they can do it themselves on their Instagram feed. In just five years the coverage on fashion websites has diminished a lot.
Blogger, Camille Charrière, stated: “Street style has become the back story whereas in the past few seasons it was the front story. I also see it in the coverage it gets. There used to be thousands of pictures online, even that has diminished a bit more now.”
However, for smaller brands, like Danish womenswear Ganni, street style has had a huge impact. Thanks to it, the company revenue has increased by 51% since 2009. The key is to keep a certain authenticity to the brand Otherwise it could be the death of your brand.
However, here are some of the photogrpahs that were took during NYFW :
