It may still seem that selfies and street style fashion stars are a very recent phenomenon, but the man who can be considered responsible for much of it is now celebrating a decade of style blogging. Scott Schuman — aka The Sartorialist — has been taking photos of the world’s most stylish people outside fashion shows for ten years this year, and while there are now a host of imitators, he’s still considered the original and best — possibly due to his ever-evolving nature.
“I had to adjust the way I shot because there are so many people around now at the shows. That’s fine. I can complain about it or just adjust or move on or evolve,” said Schuman, speaking to tabloid! at Fashion Forward in Dubai on Saturday. “The only downside is when there weren’t so many people shooting, a lot of people saw the shows through my images, and I was able to show a world to them — a very nicely curated world; I don’t really care about the truth, I am not a photojournalist. It’s my beautiful vision of that world. But now you’ve got so many people taking so many bad pictures that it’s killed the romance of that. That’s the way it is with anything. All I can do is control what I do and keep evolving. It’s tougher and tougher to get excited to go back to fashion week and shoot. Now I’m still looking for that unknown person.”
Schuman, who is publishing his third tome, The Sartorialist X, opened up about books, photographer and his fashion plans.
Q. Is this a milestone for you?
A. I just keep working. The milestone for me... I wish I had started shooting earlier. I never picked up a camera until I was 32, when I had my own kids and I started taking pictures of them. I guess the dream I am always going after is, and I just thought about this the other day and realised this might not work, I’d like to have one giant retrospective book after about 30 years of shooting and go back and look at all these places I went and all these interesting people I met. Then I realised, 20 or 25 years from now, there might not even be books around. And I love books. I was thinking I might have to adjust my dream.
Q. You’re one of the people that is bringing about that change in how we consume media, however.
A. That is true, but I also go out of my way to mention books that I love. Books aren’t easy to make, but I love doing it.
Q. What’s the process of choosing images for the book?
A. It’s a huge process. I pull all the images out that are strong enough to stand on their own. I put them in a folder on the computer and I get my desktop with a really big screen, and I put my glasses on and keep making pairs. I do that on-and-off for about three or four months. You can only do it for about two hours. It’s a really fun process. It’s a very fun puzzle.
Q. What’s changed over the last ten years?
A. Things have changed a little at the fashion weeks, but not that much. Let’s be honest: [These are] fashion people. They have always gotten dressed up. They just might not have been having their picture taken. I was going to shows before I started The Sartorialist. I knew there were a lot of other people who looked really cool who weren’t sitting in the front row.
Q. What else is in the book?
A. There is a page where I took this Prada runway image and I turned it upside down. On the blog when I take runway pictures, people say ‘those pictures mean nothing to me, who would ever wear that stuff?’ So I said, you’re right, you’d probably never be able to wear this. But! Muccia Prada is a genius at what she does, so turn the picture upside down and instead of making all these ‘no’s and these negatives, just focus on the colour combinations. Focus on how she’s mixing patterns. You don’t have to pay anything and you are getting all this free advice from a genius on how to mix patterns, colours, proportions. I like challenging the audience. A lot of times it makes them mad, and you lose people. I like taking those chances.
Q. How do you shoot on the street?
A. I don’t look for something. I try to be present and just to react. It doesn’t cost anything to take a picture. Later I review the shots, and I figure out what it means to me. Maybe it’s a fashion shot or not.
Q. Do you have people coming up to you?
A. Not so much. I’m a grown man. They probably do it to other people.
Q. There are a lot of imitators or competition now.
A. I think we can call them imitators [laughs]. What can you do?
Q. What’s next for you?
A. I am doing a shoe collection, and that will be sold to the industry in January at Pitto Uomo — it’s four shoes and one sneaker. I took design classes at school so it felt natural. I did not design every single seam, but pretty much everything. There’s a denim collection too, and I’d like to do a clothing thing. I like the idea of doing capsules. At the end of the day I still like to go shoot. I don’t want to get any [the buttons didn’t show up] calls.
Q. Are you shooting while in Dubai?
A. It’s too nerve-wracking. I don’t want to make someone upset. At first I was really frustrated, but then again, I realised if you are smart, you just have to figure out what I have to do different to capture here. Here is just unlike anywhere else in the world. Not better or worse, just different. You have to accept that and say, what’s my take on this. I’m just now coming up with the idea. The next place I want to spend time in is Spain.
