As I decided to focus on the documentation of individuals personal style in Indonesia, I tried to observe some books and websites that focus on doing street style.
1. FRUiTS and STREET
Made by Shoichi Aoki, both FRUiTS and STREET are one of the best street style documentation. FRUiTS is also the first magazine that spread the Harajuku street style crazed. Unlike the newer publication, FRUiTS purely filled with pictures with no interviews. It focused on capturing the style and details of individuals in Tokyo (FRUiTS) and London (STREET). I also think that these two cities have the strongest street style.
2. NYLON STREET
NYLON did this book in 2006. It’s focusing on several cities: London, Copenhagen, Berlin, Paris, New York, Melbourne, and Tokyo. The format is still the same with other street styles, but as a magazine, NYLON added the photos with the individuals’ name, age, and several casual questions.
3. DROP Tokyo
Out of all the examples, DROP Tokyo has the hugest base community as it is not only in Tokyo, but also Kansai, New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Korea, Taiwan, and–to my surprise!–Bangkok and Vietnam (on Instagram). South-East Asian country–except for Bangkok probably–are being looked halfway when it comes to fashion. So this is a positive sign. Created in 2007, Drop Tokyo has been the first fashion forum that discovers the “faces” that symbolize Tokyo’s next-generation streets.
4. Tokyo Fashion
From all these examples, I think Tokyo Fashion is the closest to what I want to do. They snap street style but also create articles and guides for experiencing fashion in Tokyo (though the last one is written in 2018. This struck me: do people don’t care about these article/interview or it’s just not the content needed or they just simply not able to do it anymore (as from what I see, they’re talking more about release of collections, and other information on brands that probably is faster to know from the designers/brands itself)? And I understand for street style you can’t take too much time of the person). But it’s fun to see that they linked their snaps with brands that they wear and their music preferences.
Tokyo Fashion solely focuses on Japan (Harajuku, Shibuya, Shinjuku & others). Its gallery is less crowded than Drop Tokyo, might be because they have less to cover.
Another thing that I like about Tokyo Fashion is they’re documenting fashion moments and interviewing people on the streets more intimately (though, again, the last video is from 2018). But from the videos, I’ve seen positive responses about the individuals.
5. @jogjastreetstyle
The only platform in Indonesia in this list and probably the only one. Well, we also have @lookbookindonesia and @ootdindo (inactive since 2018) but they collected photos from users and not taking it themselves. Also, the style that gets represented is similar to each other and they tend to favour influencers. So I don’t think they’re the right platform to look into. On the other hand, @jogjastreetstyle is more diverse and raw. I found this while desperately looking for Indonesian street style and turned out the owners and I followed each other on Instagram. I got the chance to talk and hear about its creation and the impact @jogjastreetstyle has in Jogjakarta.
A lot of people messaged them saying they’re grateful that the account exists as it encouraged them to be braver on expressing personal style. A lot of street style accounts emerged after the success of @jogjastreetstyle. They got covered by media and did an exhibition in 2016 by showcasing photographs of individuals chosen with their stories. The interesting factors (like how someone looks like a hardcore punk on the outside but actually a Sufi and gave a speech once a week–was off the record tho). But this twist makes it interesting–you can not always judge a person based on their appearances–there are a lot of factors that influenced their decisions. This is what I want to convey with GILIGILI. I feel so grateful that Tita (one of the two owners of @jogjastreetstyle) was very open on the experiences and provided me with a lot of insights.
One more thing, on their account @jogjastreetstyle, wrote not literally on the street–which means this condition not only happen in Jakarta–even in Jogja people don’t have the street to express themselves. But they named it street style otherwise since after doing some research, they found that street style itself is the spirit and it doesn’t have to be on the street.
Also, I’m interested in this one essay I read by Luvaas B about street style in Indonesia. When he came and tried to do street style in Jakarta and Bandung (see the essay here), he was bedazzled by how the ‘street’ is indoors and it is hard to get ‘cool’ people with ‘style’. He felt that his style radar (that built up taking street style in the US) flawed.
While the concept of ‘cool’ probably differ across the border, the reason why he felt that his style radar flawed in Indonesia because he looked at the wrong place. If, as quoted from the essay, street style is documentation of exceptional style which ‘superadded, rare, desired quality’ (Johnson-Woods and Karaminas 2013: 13), that applies to probably no more than one in a hundred people, then the ‘cool’ people must be a niche population in Indonesia.
As street style is an unfamiliar concept, people did not practice it and to find those who are ‘cool’ and have ‘style’, I think Luvas lacks the knowledge of the community on where to find the right folk to interview and the right place to conduct his experiment. I think this is the clear gap that I can fill in, as I’m an Indonesian and I belong in the community. I believe I’d be able to find the right places and the right people by networking and connecting between circles starting from my own.
Besides all the above, a lot of different documentations like Korean @streetper or a very niche @thats_so_csm. Or a more non-fashion like @shanghaiobserved and one of my personal favourite @humansofny. I think it would be nice if I can help people to open up and share stories like @humansofny does.
All in all, I can see that narrative is still something that is missing for fashion. Documentation like this is good for the sake of documenting it as inspo and anthropology. But I want to connect fashion with narratives–with stories of the wearer. Why they chose to wear what they wear today? How did the style evolve before it got to its present time? I wanted to create an open environment for people to express themselves and to share their stories so the readers will understand their decision making better. To understand people and remove judgement/prejudices.