Street style photography is an enormous component of the fashion blogosphere, which has in fact launched blogging empires (The Sartorialist and Jak + Jil to name but a few). This photoreportage genre however definitely predates the net. Bill Cunningham’s first street style shots were published in The New York Times in 1978, but he first began documenting the fashion choices of ordinary people on the street during WWII. British style magazine i-D has a 30 year archive of its signature street style shots - aka “Straight-Ups” - on its website. And WWD, where Cunningham worked briefly, has had its own longstanding series of street style shots called They Are Wearing. As the paper's Australasian correspondent since 1996, I have shot quite a few “TAWs” in Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, Seoul and Taipei for WWD FAST and (Fairchild News Service's now defunct menswear paper) DNR. During the Spring/Summer 2011 show season WWD kicked off a series of global TAW galleries in the 'Eye Scoop' section and yesterday two of mine went up, both shot last month. Here is the Sydney gallery and here is the Auckland one, which was shot around Vulcan Lane during New Zealand Fashion Week. Not including this random shot, above, which was taken for WWD FAST at Sydney's Glenmore Road, Paddington intersection in May this year. Perhaps you might recognise some of your mates.
