Street Style Books
December 28th, 2008 | Published in Books | 3 Comments
Photos and words by Maria
Fashion has its origins, inspirations, and muses. Without a doubt have a lot of popular trends and styles originated from underground fashion and style. This collection of books is a great source of inspiration and gives an in-depth look into the meaning of what street and underground fashion is. From Japan to Europe, from those who made street trends into brands to the musicians that have influenced them, from America’s fashion capital and back, to the 1970’s subculture youth. Explore the meaning of all that is street style and let regular stylish folk from around the world and from other decades inspire your next outfit, a new art piece, drawing, or perhaps your very own collection! All books photographed come from the Vancouver Public Library, so you can go and grab yourself a copy to borrow for a few days. Find links to the VPL catalogue below, or, if you don’t feel like sharing, follow the links to buy your own copy.
Streetwear: the insider’s guide
by Steven Vogel
Streetwear: the insider’s guide goes deep into the meaning of what “streetwear” is. Steven Vogel, author, tradeshow coordinator, and special projects manager, has a little something to say about where its origins are and what true streetwear really is. Look through the many streetwear brands and people that have started them—many just city kids that simply needed something to wear but found there was nothing that matched their identities in the mainstream market. Interviews, blog excerpts, tons of photos, and basically a streetwear history lesson in a neat 351-page package.
Borrow it from the VPL.
Buy it here
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Street: the Nylon book of global style
Nylon Magazine, who prides itself in catering to individuals that are looking for something outside the high fashion bubble found in too many fashion magazines, brings us a look into the streets of seven different cities around the world and the stylish people that live in them. You’ll find hand-picked individuals from London, Berlin, Tokyo, Paris, New York, Melbourne, and Copenhagen who fill in the blanks to statements like “your fashion icon is__” and “I’ve been listening to__”. A real look into what influences street style and how trends differ—or not—from continent to continent.
Borrow it from the VPL.
Buy it here
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Play: the Nylon book of music
Fashion, beauty, and music are the three major topics covered in Nylon Magazine. All three are interrelated in so many different levels— and music in particular has always had a direct impact on fashion and subculture styles. Play: the Nylon book of music dives into the minds and styles of many influential female musicians from the 70’s to now. Their stories, the tidbits of information, interviews, and playlists will have you going between YouTube, Wikipedia, and poster artist and band websites for several hours at a time. Not to mention the hundred-and-so pages of pictures of fans at concerts–where the intense influence music has on fashion is predictably clear.
Borrow it from the VPL.
Buy it here
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New York Look Book: a gallery of street fashion
by Amy Larocca & Jake Chessum from New York Magazine.
New York Magazine’s fashion writer Amy Larocca and photographer Jake Chessum were teamed up in 2004 for the magazine’s weekly feature/social experiment/style record known as the Look Book. New York Look Book: a gallery of street fashion is a compilation of 3 years in the making where the core of its theme is the idea that New York City is a giant-sized runway. There are the obvious on-trend people, since New York is what it is (enter the pearl-wearing, Prada-shopping, Upper West Side mom), but there are also people with very individualistic senses of style (enter the self-proclaimed “muse” whimsical man clad in metallic tights and a colourful poncho). Look Book also contains a section full of advice on where to shop and eat, separated by districts complete with a map with numbers so you don’t get lost. 
Borrow it from the VPL. Buy it here
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Fashion Forever: 30 years of subculture
by Iain McKell & Liz Farrelli
Fashion Forever: 30 years of subculture is a collection of images taken by photojournalist Iain McKell over the span of—you guessed it—thirty years. In this time span McKell and his camera have found themselves in places like an Anti-Nazi League demonstration in London in 1980, Boy George’s 40th birthday party in London in 2001, Guy Fawkes Night in Lewes, East Sussex in 2002, and the Rock Against Racism Festival ’76 in Hyde Park, London. Page after page shows decades of English youth and some not so young folk just living their lives–resulting in various different subcultures very much driven by style. Punks, Skinheads, New Romantics, they’re all in there—parading around in their duds unruffled by the catwalks of their time.
Borrow it from the VPL. Buy it here
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FRUiTS / FRESH FRUiTS
by Shoichi Aoki
FRUiTS and FRESH FRUiTS document young Japanese subculture fashion from the mid 1990’s and the beginnings of the popular monthly magazine also known as FRUiTS. Creator Shoichi Aoki noticed a pronounced change in the style of young people in Tokyo, so he set out to record this change with his camera. Harajuku District set the tone for a subculture of young people that took it upon themselves to make what they wore theirs alone. The results were outfits like nothing anyone on this side of the world had ever seen before. Things have visibly died down in the past few years since the closure of Harajuku as a car-free haven for young people to mingle during the weekends, but Japan has stayed stylish nonetheless since it certainly has a way of capturing the imagination in the most interesting ways.
Borrow FRUiTS and FRESH FRUiTS form the VPL.
Buy Fruits here
Click on an image to enlarge.
December 29th, 2008
So very well-researched and written Maria… you rock! I’ve seen the fresh fruits book, it is just packed full of crazy photos. Too bad they closed the car-free zone.
December 29th, 2008
I LOVE that Fruits book, it’s delightful! Great suggestions and thanks for making it easy to request from the library, what a helpful tool!
January 29th, 2009
I love LOVE love the Fruits mag! Will definitely check out the book. Thanks-a-gazillion for posting a link to the library page!
Hilary