Alongside the catwalk shows in Milan, there is another fashion week on the streets that is rivaling big name brands and is bursting with creative energy, self-promotion and pure exhibitionism.
It started out as a sideshow, but there are now more photographers outside than in, snapping VIP guests, young designers and social media celebrities — many of whom show up ticketless, armed only with ambition.
Alessandro Somma used to work taking pictures on the catwalks of the world’s top fashion houses, but he got fed up and now earns his living outside the shows documenting the eclectic mix of “street style.”
Photo: AFP
“It was a continuous repetition of the same things again and again. There was always the same battle to take exactly the same picture,” he said, standing by a graffiti-covered brick wall outside the Fendi show.
“The street is becoming bigger and bigger,” he said.
“There are a lot of bloggers, a lot of photographers for big newspapers who do street, and for up-and-coming designers it’s an important chance to show off their production,” he added.
Asked if there was an alternative “street fashion week,” he answered: “Absolutely.”
Just a few minutes before the Fendi show, paparazzi suddenly crowd the pavement around a young woman in a flowing dress and a Mary Poppins-style hat clutching a bead-encrusted box handbag.
Her name is Cecilie Fabricius and for a few seconds she is suddenly famous.
“For me street style is art, so I like to dress up like a painting,” she said, handing out business cards stating her profession as “Multi Artist” and explaining that she hangs out outside all the shows wearing her own work.
The attention quickly moves on to a new arrival on the street catwalk.
Alessia Sica, a doe-eyed brunette and young fashion blogger, is wearing Fendi shoes and a black-and-white pencil skirt that she made herself.
“This is a way of advertising ourselves,” she said, as she preened.
The stars of this other fashion week might be virtually unknown to the jet-setting fashion community, but they have tens of thousands of followers online who follow their every move and get a few style tips to boot.
For Vogue Italia editor Franca Sozzani, the street show has become an integral part of every fashion week that can provide original insights.
“Times have changed,” she said at a party in a palazzo, where actresses Blake Lively and Cate Blanchett could be seen milling.
“It is all one thing now. Fashion week includes everyone, young people, older people, bloggers. Involving them is very important,” she said.
“They are youthful and they have a much more freer look than mine for example and so I am interested in their points of view,” she said.
Within this fashion week tribe, many are a hybrid of model, photographer and blogger and some have almost street artist performances — balancing on impossibly high heels, pouting on Vespas, even hula-hooping for attention.
A select few have the means to travel to the global fashion industry hubs.
One example is Daria Shapovalova from Ukraine, who is photographed in an amazing array of elegant outfits and writes for a fashion Web site in Kiev.
“I think fashion is becoming more like pop culture, people come, but it’s like they’re coming to a concert,” said Shapovalova, wearing a dress by a Ukrainian designer with car prints.
She says she has a lot of interaction with the 100,000 Web sites who look at her Web site and helps them find inspiration on how to dress fashionably without having to shell out for the famous brands.
“People are usually asking me what I am wearing or how they can pair different bags with their outfits. They are commenting if they like my look today or not, but in most cases they do,” she said.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last