He's In Fashion

In late 2005, New York-based fashion industry veteran Scott Schuman took part of a hobby, part of a 15-year career and a word that doesn’t exist and turned it into one of the most respected design references on the planet. And note how I didn’t use the word blog.

At just two years old, online street fashion journal The Sartorialist was voted one of Time Magazine’s Top 100 Design Influences. Now boasting a blogroll four years long, the site receives an average of 140,000 hits a day, not to mention the editorials for GQ and Parisian Vogue and the campaign shoots for DKNY and Burberry that the website has scored for its procreator.
This unique dividend is fueled by a unique approach to style. The Sartorialist is the kind of place where one is as much revered for the fold of a pocket square as for touting this season’s Balenciaga blazer. Indian teenagers, Milanese soldiers, Williamsburg hipsters and Parisian grandmothers are given equal billing.
Last month, a 500-page book titled simply The Sartorialist took these images outside the web spectrum and into people’s hands.
I speak to Scott shortly after a signing in Dublin, at an after party thrown for him in Harvey Nichols in Dundrum; a room heaving with champagne glasses and stilettos. As I greet him, he tugs on the arm of his assistant for the weekend, Eva, and promptly sends her scurrying off to the DJ box. “Can we get some Jay-Z or something on here?”
“Are you vetoing the playlist, Scott?” I inquire.
“Yeah I am! It’s my party, and I’ll request if I want to.”
First, I must ask for Schuman’s thoughts on Irish style, a question he cleverly evades. “I’m going to have a wander around on Saturday and Sunday...” he trails, “but I don’t know what I’m going to find yet. I’m still digesting, it takes a day or so to figure it out.”
One thing the 41-year-old entrepreneur reckons us Irish have on our side is the schizophrenic weather; “It definitely helps. Like in LA or the Philippines, it’s so hot and so humid they can only wear one layer. The more you have to play with, potentially the better it is.”
Scott’s been everywhere from San Francisco to Sao Paulo on his journey for true style, what does he think this diversity adds to The Sartorialist?
“The blog’s so international. We see how different people in different parts of the world view the same things. It’s an interesting discussion outside of fashion. What people think of the comments now, hopefully we can archive this and people can look back at those comments 100 years from now.”
Schuman is nothing if not a fascinating character. He never studied photography, in fact, he learned his trade from snapping his two young daughters (“I had to learn how to shoot fast”). But while he may come off as something of an spontaneous artiste, Schuman is every inch the cunning business man, having earned his stripes in the sales and marketing departments of the biggest fashion houses in New York. At his signing in the Gallery of Photography in Dublin, a dignified mob of fans represent a motley mix of male and female, young and old; all bonded in the way they clasp their copy of The Sartorialist tightly to their chest. You can’t market for the kind of adoration Schuman’s work attracts.
“I thought I had a good idea and I did everything I could to make it this big.” he says, openly. “Every opportunity I got I tried to make the best of that opportunity. I didn’t know if it would get this big but I thought it could. I thought I had a good idea. I knew I had a good eye. If I could shoot people in the romantic way that I saw things, I thought I could do something really good.”
‘Other street style blogs are just reporting what they’re seeing, they’re not shooting it with the romantic eye. They’re just like ‘Oh look, she was wearing that with that and that.’ I would rather capture the emotion.”
‘I have to fall in love a little bit with everyone I shoot but it’s an odd kind of love, I mean I shoot guys, girls, old people, whatever, but there’s an affection, there’s something about them and I have to capture that.”
A few days after the party in Harvey Nichols, Scott photographed me on Anne’s Lane, just off Grafton Street. I could tell about you his process, how he approached me, how he directed me in front of the camera and what he said to make me laugh. But that, I guess, would ruin the romance.