3
Wdifferent
hat is “street style”? The quick answer to this question is that the term means
things to different people, and its referent varies greatly depending
upon the interests of whomever one asks. For some, street style is about fashion,
the new, the constantly changing, that which the masses will emulate. For others,
street style is about antifashion, that which remains largely unchanged year after
year and which seeks to affront the mainstream rather than spawn emulation. A
discussion of street style may revolve around what Ted Polhemus has termed a
“style tribe,” a recognizable sartorial expression situated within a group that may
have some sort of shared interest such as music, gaming, or literature. In some in-
stances these style tribes may appropriately be labeled subcultural groups, factions
of people who are united socially because of a shared vision of mainstream soci-
ety’s shortcomings. Subcultural groups utilize style as both personal expression
and visible rejection of mainstream codes of conduct. Beginning in the 1990s the
term “street style” routinely came to be used to refer to urban (usually African
American) dress, which is now commonly referred to as hip-hop style. This ap-
plication of the term may have paved the path for its use in common parlance to-
day. Since the early 2000s the term “street style” has been used as a general
descriptor of dress assemblages seen most anywhere other than a runway or a fash-
ion editorial, and the prevailing implication of the term is that street style is an
expression of personal style. This text investigates both recognizable style groups
(including subcultural styles) and 21st-century personal style.
A note of caution is necessary before proceeding. Street style, even the street
style of recognizable social groups, is neither static nor homogenous. Street style
is constantly evolving and is subject to an infinite number of personal interpreta-
tions that written documentation may inadvertently belie. One critique that emerges
again and again in the study of subcultural groups and their styles is that authors
(whether they are sociologists or fashion historians) try to make tidy, linear, grand
narratives of these groups, their dress, and the meaning inherent in it. I have tried
to avoid such generalizations about people, meaning, and intentions; and where
Chapter 1
Introduction
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