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Preface
In the early spring of 2015, just as I was in the process of completing my first book,
Fashion Fads through American History: Fitting Clothes into Context, my former
editor Rebecca Matheson approached me with the daunting prospect of writing a
book on “street style.” As an avid reader of fashion periodicals and fashion trade
publications, I was keenly aware that the concept of street style was incredibly
“hot.” It seemed that everywhere I turned in contemporary fashion media the term
“street style” was being used—to promote trendy fashion concepts, to sell mer-
chandise by connecting it to a sense of freshness and innovation, to celebrate ce-
lebrities and thereby promote the brands and designers they wear—yet even a
fleeting consideration of this omnipresent concept revealed a great disparity in
terms of meaning. I was left to wonder, what is street style? What do we mean
when we use the term?
This is a book about dress styles, a visual language that is rich, complex, and
not as univocal as some have made it out to be. Part of what this book strives to
accomplish is the presentation of an orderly and cohesive discussion of what street
style has been over the course of American history and what it is today. It is clear
that it is a concept that has evolved over time. There is a large body of literature,
primarily from the field of sociology, that has investigated the realm of subcultural
style (an important subgenre of street style) through various kinds of fieldwork
including interviews and observations. Much has been accomplished in terms of
understanding why individuals participate in these kinds of street styles; however,
research and theory building about style, coming from the social sciences, gener-
ally give only the most cursory attention to the style itself. This work draws upon
the rich body of literature generated in the social sciences and augments it by delv-
ing into the specifics of dress practices.
The documentation of specific street styles (including cut, fit, materials, brands,
do-it-yourself techniques, specific innovators, and retailers) is lacking. Few texts
written by an historian and devoted exclusively to this subject exist. Many of the
important texts are outdated, and one of the most widely read books deals with the
