INTERVIEW:Dubliners take note – it's time to dress up. Scott Schuman, the man behind street style fashion blog The Sartorialist, is coming to town. DEIRDRE MCQUILLANcaught up with Schuman during London Fashion Week
FOUR YEARS AGO last month. Scott Schuman was a stay-at-home father in New York looking after his two small children. Schuman is from Indiana, and he worked for 15 years in the fashion business but became increasingly aware of and frustrated by the disparity between idealised images in magazines and what real people were wearing on the street. So he decided to start a blog photographing stylish people who caught his eye. He has never looked back.
Today, www.thesartorialist.com is one of the most successful fashion blogs in the world with more than 125,000 visits a day and growing. Described by the New York Times as “the bellwether American site that turned photoblogging into an art form” and by Time magazine as one of the top 100 design influences, Schuman’s portraits of men and women of all ages in New York, London, Stockholm, Paris or Milan is a compelling observation of everyday street style as revealing of contemporary taste as it is of the critical yet sensitive eye behind it.
“I am not trying to report what people are wearing, or be a catalogue of skirt lengths or heel heights, but catch the feeling of what I see on the street,” he says when we meet in London during London Fashion Week. “I see my images as a social document celebrating self expression. It’s a positive and less judgmental way to look at the world.”
A certain joie de vivre characterises his pictures as much as a keen observation of detail, whether it’s a portrait of a beautiful girl caught crossing the street in New York or an ageing Italian drug dealer in a sharp suit and two-tone brogues. “My inspiration comes from contrast and variety,” he says. “It’s successful because I have a unique point of view which comes with sincerity.”
Being on the other side of the camera and becoming something of a celebrity is a new but welcome experience for him. We meet in the stylish One Aldwych hotel on the Strand in London, where he is staying for the duration of London Fashion Week. He is small, energetic and robust, with piercing blue eyes and a glance that tends to stray disconcertingly throughout our conversation, as if he’s constantly on the alert. When I ask him if his work has affected how he dresses, he readily concurs that it was the core reason for starting the blog because he wanted to get tips on how to dress like what he calls “old school . . . I was not seeing it in magazines. I wanted to have my swagger, my version of it.”
His own attire is telling and studied. Shoes (worn without socks) in chocolate leather with double-monk straps are from Al Bazar in Milan, as are his grey wool trousers. He points out how well cut and well made they are, taped on the inside at the ankle cuff. “They are perfect for travelling. They could be Thom Browne [a hot US menswear designer] or Jil Sander, but Jil Sander doesn’t tape on the inside and these are half the price.”
The well-fitting brown leather bomber jacket is from the French mail-order company APC and his shirt is from J Crew. But his blogs aren’t concerned about the labels people wear. “It’s about how people wear clothes. The man who wears a shirt, but how he rolls up the sleeve. Many old guys have style but are not of the moment, yet they ooze personality.”
Years of experience in fashion, he says, have given him an insight as to what women want to wear. “Some want to be sexy, some want to be vintage, some want to be cool and I have a good eye for seeing which one does which well.”
Schuman’s new book The Sartorialist is an anthology of his favourite images, which include well-known people such as Giorgio Armani, Kanye West and Carine Roitfeld (editor of French Vogue) alongside anonymous others encountered on the street, occasionally with his commentary or their back stories (Armani, for instance, only agreed once he was photographed behind a dark background so his white hair would stand out).
Julie, the girl on the cover, pictured bottom left, was deliberately chosen to drive home his aim of inspiring readers. “She is one of my favourite subjects because people think she is so perfect. She is not, but she has figured out how to deal with her imperfections and that has struck a chord with people.”
He is regularly asked what constitutes personal style and argues that it is much more about people’s conflict about who they are, rather than conviction, which is why he thinks young people or those young at heart are often the most inspiring.
Schuman finds Milan “very old school, very elegant, almost trapped in time. It is like America in the l960s, bartenders still in white dinner jackets and a certain formality. But despite the beautiful colour combinations, there is a lack of variety that you see in London and New York.”
Schuman admits that he is enjoying his success and wants to profit from it as much as possible. He is now a sought-after photographer, shooting stories for Paris Vogue, American GQ, Elle magazine and style.com along with campaigns for DKNY and Burberry. Next year he wants to travel further abroad with his new girlfriend Garance Dore, to South America, India and Tibet to capture further evidence of inspirational style from what he calls “folkloric costumes”.
He also wants to sell “little things you lust for” online, such as cufflinks, specially made boxer shorts, Indian scarves, gloves, “cool finds”, and has already had a Sartorialust pop-up store in Barneys in New York.
“I want to keep pushing this idea, but photography will always be the core; if anything, I want to focus more on my blog, because I have such a great audience, and make it more exciting and use the site as a resource.”
His promotional tour has taken him all over the US and Canada and in Europe to Stockholm, Paris, Milan and London. He will be in Dublin next Friday for the first time to promote his new book and hopes to photograph Dubliners that catch his critical eye. “So tell them to dress up please,” he smiles.
The Sartorialist by Scott Schuman is published by Penguin Books, £19.99. A special bespoke limited edition is £100