Written by Fifi Newbery
As the perceived luxury and undeniable silliness of London Fashion week comes to a close, show goers will now be packing their Tabi’s and pigeon bags safely in their suitcases ready to move onto the next fashion capital. Before my camera and I rejoin the party, let me share my reflections through my lens’s perception of photographing street style at London Fashion Week.
Street style in some ways is at the epicentre of fashion as we know it and the photography that goes along with it is almost unrecognisable from where it started. Social media and the influencers that have been created with it have evolved and so has the nature of the images we, as photographers are taking. What people are wearing to shows permeates through to what designers are sending down runways which then has a trickledown effect to what we see in our wardrobes over the following seasons. Instead of the street being influenced by runways we see the narrative being flipped and micro trends being curated and pushed through the fashion industry by street style and by the people wearing them. This season in London we saw bold pops of colour, lots of tartan and slogan tee’s, as well as micro shorts for the city’s coolest men and longer silhouettes for skirts and short for the women.
On a personal level my love for street style photography comes from its hectic energy. Capturing small moments in the chaos, turning my camera around and away from the influencers posing, towards the public unintentionally caught up in the fashionable circus that has unfolded in front of them. For me there is just as much joy and satisfaction to be gained in capturing someone’s reaction to a celebrity or outfit than the subject themselves. Each show feels like an opportunity to tell a story about the clothes and styles that have been carefully crafted by the show’s attendees.
Every day is different, in fact every show is different. Working at a hundred miles an hour to produce something you’re proud of every day of the month. Screams from fans of celebrity guests paired with the shouts of “show us the bag” and “One looking this way please” from photographers, the constant clicking of camera shutters. Photographers jostling for space to photograph their guest or accessory of choice or sprinting after their favourite influencers as they rush past, late for the show. Long nights working to short deadlines and early morning commutes to the first show of the day. It’s this addictive kind of sensory overload that keeps many of us coming back season after season. This is what feels so special about street style photography for me, each photographer is crafting something unique to themselves. Each of us is working towards the same agenda in capturing fashion at its source in a unique way.
