Day 3: Street Style
Something magic is happening this fashion week: a creativity and vitality is shining through. Compared to the past two seasons, which were all about expensive crazy platform heels, this is about infinite choices. It’s hard to believe, but back last September, only the most hardcore fashionistas could wear those crazy platforms: there were no inexpensive versions, so if you wore them, it showed you were fashion forward, and spent a month’s salary.
This year, it’s like everyone is on a budget: often they’re a student, or changing careers. Each woman I speak with has interests beyond fashion: they work in totally unrelated fields, or are getting a degree in medicine, or political or economic theory.. these are girls with brains AND beauty, and the beauty is in all sizes, shapes, and colours. We might care passionately about fashion, but that isn’t remotely all we care about: this isn’t about labels or status or bling. This is about a zest for life, a generosity of spirit: fashion week has become, rather than a test that we can pass or fail, a celebration of all that is wonderful about the creative human spirit.
It has really hit me: ‘they’ – this mythical industry that we all talk about – are no longer dictating from above what we should wear. There has been, in the space of the year, a very exciting shift in how trends are born: it has risen from the street. By the people, of the people. Several friends in the past day have mentioned the ‘democratisation of fashion’ as brought on by fashion blogging. If that’s so it’s an amazing feat.
What do you think? Has the revolution begun?
