Fashion Faceoff: In the battle between street style stars and fashion editors, who really influences today’s trends?
Photography by Team Peter Stigter
Photography by Team Peter Stigter
Photography by Team Peter Stigter
Photography by Team Peter Stigter
Photography by Team Peter Stigter
If you type “street style star” into a Google search, it will generate over 671 million results. The pages range from gushy Tumblrs and Pinterest boards to roundups on magazine websites to street-style candids by the photographers who’ve catapulted these hitherto anonymous fashion plates into superstardom. For devout fashion followers, the names Hanneli Mustaparta and Susie Bubble roll off the tongue with the same familiarity as Anna Wintour and Carine Roitfeld. Meanwhile, type “fashion magazine editor” into a search, and you’ll get a paltry by comparison 136 million pages that err on the side of the pedantic “how to become” genre and images of Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada.
Unlike traditional editors, street-style stars are built for fashion’s new viral landscape: They are typically tall, telegenic and impeccably turned out. And although their personal style verges, more often than not, on the otherworldly (feathered fascinators, jewel-encrusted crop tops), these stars have the power to launch an item into the trend stratosphere with just one photograph. The influence carried by their personal style choices is so strong that one can’t help but wonder if they are the new fashion editors. “Street style stars are absolutely influencing the consumer,” says Barbara Atkin, vice-president of fashion direction at Holt Renfrew. “To the new fashion consumer, this person who’s dressing up every day in the trends is creating the must-have items of the immediate future. She is the new It girl.” And, unlike Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe or Jane Birkin, today’s It girls don’t have to be seasoned celebrities to achieve icon status. “Today, you can get instant notoriety and stardom just from getting noticed on the street,” says Atkin.
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