Fashion Week in New York is just wrapping up, but the sprawling global event that is Fashion Month is just picking up steam. Before the showings for Spring/Summer 2014 wind down, the circus of editors, models, and celebrities will have made its way through London, Milan, and finally, Paris. Keeping up with the hundreds of outfits and dozens of micro-trends pouring out of each fashion week is exhausting — which is why many of us plebes prefer to keep up with street style blogs instead of the shows themselves. It’s all the eye candy and inspiration of fashion, curated in advance and stripped of the hamster-wheel-like feeling that makes following the shows themselves so overwhelming. That said, here are our favorite street style sites to show off the highlights of the next few weeks and beyond.
Image Credit: The Sartorialist
The Sartorialist
You can’t talk about street style without talking about Scott Schuman, the lensman who started it all with his straightforward shots of men and women on the street. The Sartorialist remains top dog to this day, capturing a mix of the fashion crowd and everyday citizens in cities around the world.
Image Credit: Garance Dore
Garance Doré
Schuman’s better half takes a more intimate approach to photography, alternating street shots with portraits of friends and acquaintances in their natural habitat. Doré’s stunningly gorgeous photos are complemented by illustrations and her hastily translated commentary, which always has a giddy tone to it that makes clear she’s psyched as ever to do what she does for a living.
Image Credit: Models Off Duty
Models Off Duty
It stands to reason that the very best street style subjects would be the men and women who get paid to look good. Enter the blog formerly known as Altamira, which fuses the time-honored fashion geek practice of keeping tabs on models with an appreciation of said models’ ability to turn it out off the runway.
Image Credit: Mister Mort
Mister Mort
The vast majority of fashion media focuses on the women’s side of the equation, but Mister Mort catalogs menswear with an eye for detail and variety that’s just as happy to photograph an elderly guy on Astor Place as a clotheshorse in Soho as a trip to the beach. Ladies, don’t worry: we get plenty of love as well.
Image Credit: Advanced Style
Advanced Style
There are a lot of biases on display in the world of fashion, but age may be one of the least discussed. Enter Advanced Style, Ari Cohen’s log of fashionable New Yorkers of a certain age. There’s both a book and a film by now, but Cohen’s original blog remains the best reminder that fashion is for everyone, not just the pretty young things at Lincoln Center.
Image Credit: Jak and Jil
Jak and Jil
Tommy Ton has a masterful eye for detail, one that singles out a shoe in motion or the silhouette of a coat in a way that manages to evoke the way an entire outfit looks and moves in a single shot. His distinctive style has landed him on virtually every street photographer shortlist out there, and with good reason. No one captures the usual suspects with such a refreshing take.
Image Credit: Facehunter
Facehunter
Yvan Rodic’s tastes tend to be more eclectic and avant-garde than the typical daring-but-not-too-daring aesthetic that dominates the fashion world. The globetrotting photog also tends to visit locales less frequented by his peers, from Uruguay to Indonesia, all well documented on his visual diary.
Humans of New York
It’s not a style blog per se, but there’s no better site on the Internet for people watching and the heartwarming stories that go with it. HONY is legendary for its offbeat subjects and commitment to showing readers the full breadth of New York’s mind-boggling diversity.
Image Credit: Street Peeper
Street Peeper
Phil Oh has something for everyone: updates broken down by city, designer, and visual trend, plus the behind-the-scenes updates one expects from a photographer of Oh’s stature and level of access. With his ability to spot and capture mini-motifs on the go, Oh’s arguably the digital age’s next Bill Cunningham.
Image Credit: Turned Out
Turned Out
Maya Villiger captures scenery and ambiance just as much as personal style, but her infrequent updates from in and around Los Angeles have a mysterious, out-of-focus vibe that’s all her own. Nothing from the tents here, but plenty of kids and Lakers tank tops.