Sartorial Muse

In the traditional sense, it was always easy to get inspired. Magazines have always served as the world's fashion bible with pages and pages of fashion stories and red carpet looks. Films, music videos, actors, models, singers and socialites have proven to be muses for many people in the past. We were accustomed to the traditional pyramid of inspiration where we took and adapted ideas and wove trends to match our own ethos. On the very top of this pyramid, of course, is the designer. Part artist, part architect, part magician, many studies have been made on where and more importantly how designers get their ideas, mixing and combining different aesthetics, time periods and muses to create their own fashion stories that they present to the world. But now things are a little different.

For the fashion conscious and aesthetically aware, fashion is so much more than how you dress. It's a philosophy, it's a way of life and in hindsight, it seems that this old way of seeking new ideas seems. narrowminded. Thanks to the digital age, our understanding of what fashion is, how it works and how it can inspire us has elevated us into a whole new plateau. The pyramid of inspiration is more a circle now. In fact no, it's more like an orb.

It would be amateur and cliché to site street fashion, and street fashion photography, blogs and (the most overused label of this century) "fahionistas" for this change. Those elements have definitely been a driving force in the industry but it is the people behind those terms and movements that in some shape or form have always existed.

One person who is imperative to recognise is Scott Schuman, otherwise known as The Sartorialist. For those of you who don't know, Schuman is not only one of the first bloggers to revolutionize how fashion is perceived, he is still, almost 12 years on, the most relevant. Roaming the streets of whatever city he chooses to visit, he photographs real people who speak to him on a visual level. Taking fashion inspiration out of the runways and to the streets has made him a legend in a very short period and has changed how we and designers get inspired.
His book The Sartorialist X, which was published almost two years ago, is in my opinion, on its way to becoming an iconic piece of fashion history and education. Capturing beauty, visual splendor and incredible fashion moments, the images throughout the book also reminds fashion enthusiasts how to get inspired by our immediate environment and to reexamine what fashion is and how it applies to us.

Maán Jalal is a self-confessed bookworm, who is seriously interested in the anatomy of fashion.

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