How ‘street style’ lost its meaning and its power, appropriated by high fashion

There is no such thing as street style. Not any more.

Oh sure, photographers still surge around the entrances to fashion shows in an attempt to capture style in its so-called natural habitat. The women (it is mostly women) traipse to and fro posing for the photo pack, sometimes feigning nonchalance. But very little of what is presented as “street style” is actually of-the-street, born and bred.

These looks have not been cobbled together organically. Much of what we’re seeing the fashion crowd wear on the street is simply well-placed advertising for brands – whether the clothing itself or the blogger wearing it. It is wholly domesticated.

Today, what we used to think of as street style – athletic, down-market, serendipitous, multicultural – is reflected in the looks offered by both the historic Christian Dior and the corporate Maison Margiela. It is in Off-White and Koché – up-and-coming, highly praised new labels.

Most notably, it is in Balenciaga. Designer Demna Gvasalia has been instrumental in erasing the lines between what had always been considered street style and the rarefied point-of-view of the atelier. As part of the Vetements team, he ushered in an era of ungainly, oversized silhouettes and helped to turn such mundane commodities as a logo T-shirt for express-mail giant DHL into a covetable fashion item.