Image of Scott's booksigning at Collette, Paris
Book Cover. Image courtesy of The Sartorialist
Famed street style photog Scott Schuman, famous, even among fashion’s elite ( Mario Testino contributes a jacket quote that proclaims Scott’s blog as “the place to see and be seen”) named by Time magazine as one of The Top 100 Design Influencers for chronicling inspiring images daily on his internationally renown blog The Sartorialist has been making the book-signing rounds from Paris to London to New York to Milan and made his way to Los Angeles, specifically Barney’s and the Beverly Center. Both events were Thursday, October 22. A Book Signing Party was hosted from 8pm-10pm on the viewswept rooftop of the Beverly Center at the Terrace Lounge.
Scott Schuman's appearance at Barney's LA, Thursday afternoon
The line started outside the venue at the velvet rope as some of the most stylish people Ive seen in LA in a very long time waited patiently for entre. (Thanks to my spontaneous networking skills and shameless name-dropping I mentioned event producer and trendsetter Susie Vance’s name so as to sail by jealous onlookers and into the big event).
I thought I’d wandered into midnight at Skybar as waves of sexy remixes courtesy of the dj whose name I was remiss in getting set a sensual, loungy feel and Simon LA provided fabulous food and drink. Large, illuminated, photo displays of some of Scott’s fashion spottings from the book framed the terrace and became photo ops for the party attendees … the effect was California Chic meets New York Glamour. The Sartorialist book was available briefly at Traffic Men and Traffic Women (the paperback $25, the Bespoke edition $175) in the mall however they sold out in the first hour.
Leigh, Paris. Image courtesy of The Sartorialist blog.
Man of Style, Milan. Image courtesy of The Sartorialist blog.
Woman in white Paris. Image courtesy of The Sartorialist blog.
The atmosphere was a mash-up of red carpet exuberance meets clubby overindulgence and posturing mixed with polite restraint by the literary devotees waiting in orderly silence for their books to be signed. Schuman signed each book and greeted each fan graciously and with great interest. He mingled briefly due overwhelmingly to the long line of fans waiting for a moment with the maestro. He signed up to the appointed 10pm cutoff after which event security made it obvious the party was over.
Effortless Chic: Man in Florence. Image courtesy of The Sartorialist blog.
Lauren Hutton @ Calvin Klein. Image courtesy of the new release The Sartorialist.
Woman of Style New York. Image courtesy of The Sartorialist blog.
I left the event wishing for the opportunity at some point to see Scott in a completely different context. One where he might speak to the process of capturing spontaneous examples of style. I would also love to hear his observations on the fashion industry he left after 15 years in order to reconcile the gap between that industry and ultimately the audience it serves who typically have little in common with 6 ft tall supermodels from Brazil. Until that day, a signed copy of this graceful tribute to the art of fashion and the gift of style will suffice!
Book available at Amazon.com. See the review below, courtesy Amazon.com
Scott Schuman just wanted to take photographs of people on the street who looked great. His now famous blog (‘the bellwether American site that turned photo blogging into an art form’ – “New York Times”) was an attempt to showcase the wonderful and varied sartorial tastes of real people – not only those of the fashion industry. The book is a beautiful anthology of Scott’s favorite shots from around the world. They include photographs of well-known fashion figures as well as those shots of the anonymous passerby whose imagination and taste delight the viewer. From the streets of Rio to Beijing, Stockholm to Milan, these are the people who have inspired Scott and in turn, inspired designers and people of all ages, wages and nationalities with an interest in fashion. Intimately designed and created with Scott, the book is a handsome object in its own right, in full color on hand-picked, quality paper. –This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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