New York Fashion Week’s true soul lives in the streets
- Text by Isaac Muk
- Photography by Tom “TBow” Bowden
The people’s runway — For a week, the city floods with celebrities, influencers and glitzy afterparties, but year-round real self-expression takes place everywhere. Tom ‘TBow’ Bowden took his camera to NYC’s biggest catwalk.
So it’s a wrap on another year of New York Fashion Week, and the results are rolling in. Baggy is in, polished is out. We should all be tucking our hair into our jackets, and indigenous fashion is finally getting proper recognition.
A new set of trends have been declared, until the next fashion week rolls around of course, and the cycle restarts. Also, Elon Musk’s estranged trans daughter, Vivian Wilson, who has described her father as a “pathetic man child”, walked in three shows and became a modelling star overnight.
But in New York, and every other city across the world, one thing is constant: the streets. NYFW is a glitzy, starry event with perfectly cheekboned models, front row hierarchies, Instagram Stories stunting and exclusive afterparties. But it wouldn’t mean anything if it wasn’t for the clothes that people wear everyday, walking from SoHo to Greenwich, or through Flushing Meadows.
Tom “TBow” Bowden was in NYC over the past week, hitting up shows but also traipsing the streets in search for illuminating looks and outfits. While he found the spectacle and polish of the catwalk impressive, as a street photographer by nature, it was those who he shot walking around town that he had the strongest connection with.
“Runway Fashion is laser focused. It’s a big money showcase for high fashion, new fabrics, new products and technologies,” he says. “Top models are carefully chosen, made up, dressed and practiced for their ultimate runway walk with bright lights and music. The fashion elite are in the audience watching their every move.”
NYFW is a carefully constructed, controlled environment, but in NYC’s public spaces, fashion rules disappear, and the streets become a theatre for self-expression. “For the attending photographer there are strict rules regarding who, what, when and where photos can be taken,” TBow continues. “It’s a beautiful and fascinating thing but as a street photographer at heart, I always feel like I’m in church or at a convention. Street fashion is casual and loose. It’s egalitarian. Everyone’s invited, including the Homeless who often pattern outfits out of discarded fabrics they find.”
“People wearing their street fashion seem more in touch with the clothes they are wearing, because nine out of 10 times they constructed them. I always want to hear their opinions and fashion stories because I love the details, I love the story. I have an insatiable curiosity about people.”
See TBow’s photographs from New York Fashion Week below.
Follow Tom ‘TBow’ Bowden on Instagram.
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