Origin of Street Style

It is basic knowledge that the clothing that we wear adds to define who we are. It gives others our first impression and in a way, forms our sense of identity. We can categorize clothing into various types (formal, lounge and so on) and one of them is Street Style fashion. In this post, we are going to try and improve our understanding of what street style fashion is.

What is Street Style?

While the term Street Style is now a common term in the Modern Fashion World, it is believed to have originated from grass root streets and not from the studios. That is basically its specialty – the uniqueness of the streets. It is typically associated with the youth culture and mostly seen in urban settings. Street style involves artists interpreting any experience and expressing it in their unique way. It is not limited to chunky sneakers and torn jeans but it is way more than that. It is a vast group of people with their expressional clothing across various articles of wear, coming together to form a sense of belonging - an identity.

How Street Style came to be:

While Street style always existed in some form, its existence only gained recognition and value in the mid-1950s in the west. The chaos that took place after World War II had a significant impact on the growth of the mass culture. The great war showed how hollow traditional subcultural practices of race, religion, ethnicities, regionalism were and how certain individuals from the war could gain hero status. Street style developed in the mid-twentieth century and became differentiated because of its way of purchasing and its unique perception of fashion. The advent of mass-marketing and suburbanization ensured that the uniqueness of every “street” could reach thousands across the globe. Street style now evolved from common social practice in certain nooks of the country to an important segment of the mass-fashion industry. But this didn’t happen in the blink of an eye; it took street style a very long time to become an important part of this upcoming mass-fashion industry. The evolution was accompanied by various social, political, cultural, and economic changes. These changes impacted individual experiences which translated into expressional clothing. That was a time when people wanted to communicate in a manner different from everybody else. They wanted to make a change from the already existing ordinary style of fashion, too. As a result, many new different groups with their styles emerged like the hippies, bikers, goths and so on - also called ‘baby boomers’. Every street look which emerged, as a result, had its own set of lifestyle values, beliefs, and philosophy. The need for change was as strong as the need to make a statement. Street style acted as a facilitator of group identity and sub-cultural cohesion. The tribelike groupings gave the new youth the much-needed sense of belonging. Street style appearances then somehow ended up gluing together people of the same tribe. In the 1970s and 80s, these were the people with a “free spirit”.

These groups still exist and have a reputation in the world for being different and not being afraid to express themselves.

The Future of Street Style

Simply put, street style is never going out of fashion. It is so ingrained in our day-to-day wear that we will always need it. However, how it is marketed, definitely will see change. Almost everyone has a good phone and can take pictures to post influential images of their own creation. The number of fashion stylists, bloggers, influencers, and celebrities is growing very fast and most of them are paid to wear a particular style of clothing. The level of authenticity in street-style may decline rapidly but that will mean stylists coming up with innovative ways to communicate through apparel.

What remains though, is the street style photography of the streets, of people in their day-to-day lives.

Everyone probably has their evolution of style and with this evolution, one might look back and wonder why they wore something at a particular time. You might be looking for better styles that fit you better and express yourself.

Don’t worry. We, at Semantic, have got you covered. Shop away and stay happy in your skin! Choose any of our men's graphic tees or women's graphic tees and experience apparel-expression like never before.

20-Jan-2021