Last December, the rain fell copiously in New York, and Scott Schuman was forced to stop shooting. For weeks one of the warmest autumns ever recorded had delayed the interview with the man that rescued the street photography tradition and brought it to the Internet in 2005.
Schuman chooses to meet at “Le Pain Quotidien”, in Greenwich Village, the neighborhood where he lives and has his office. The coffee shop is a European space adapted to an American sensibility, the abbreviation of a local experience for a global audience, very much like the photographs in his blog, that attract 14 million views a month. In just a decade, he has jumped from the Internet to Time magazine’s most influential list and to the pages of Vogue, but his blog remains pretty much the same, with barely any text or sponsored posts.
He called his last book The Sartorialist X, and now he’s off to plan his next step, a global project, that will take him where he has never been. Before he hits the road, though, Schuman spends his days as he as always done, riding his bike for hours, from Downtown to Harlem, looking for the perfect picture.
You spent the last few weeks photographing in the city where it all started. Is the thrill the same 10 years later?
Oh yeah, even more so. I spent part of this morning reading about Helen Levitt, who was a famous New York street photographer. She photographed for more than 70 years. I’m trying to think of new projects, new ways of shooting, new equipment. The passion is even more now. I have the money to go after new projects. I could do something anywhere.
You were born in a middle class family in a small town in Indiana. How did you become interested in fashion?
When I was in junior high, I started seeing all the sport stars in GQ magazine. Slowly, I realized that dressing a certain way attracted girls. I got a job at the mall, kept doing it in college, and right after graduation I got a job at Bloomingdale’s in New York. Three months later, I went to work for a designer, doing sales, and then I opened my showroom with new designers. In 2001, after 9-11, the business started going down, there were no new designers. I closed the showroom and started watching my kids. I started taking pictures of them and, when I felt I was getting pretty good, I decided I should photograph what I saw on the street, with my own fashion point of view, because I felt it was different from what I was seeing in the magazines.
How did you decide to put it all in a blog?
Blogs were just starting at that time. I could see it was something that was growing. At that time, they were very text driven, didn’t have many images, and there was really no place on the Internet to talk about fashion. There were chat rooms, but they weren’t taken very seriously and weren’t very visual. When I saw blogs that you could put pictures on, right away, it clicked. I thought it could be a great place for fun. I didn’t think it could become anything more. It just took off from there.
Why do you think that happened?
The way I see fashion is educated. But it was also different because I could talk about men’s and about women’s [fashion]. I know fashion and can talk about it at a high level. I talked to the right people in the right way. If I hadn’t done that, none of this would have happened.
When did you realize it could become your full-time job?
It happened pretty quickly. Within a couple of months, style.com called and said they wanted me to go to Milan. GQ gave me a page while I was there. I went from no seat at the shows to front row seats. Because no one had done it, I really didn’t know what to do. The blog, by itself, could make money? I just took advantage of the opportunity I was given and rode it out.
After years photographing in New York, Paris and Milan, in your last book you went to Marrakesh Mumbai, Bangkok, Bali, Rio de Janeiro. What surprised you on these trips?
You become aware of the incredible variety of mankind, but also of how similar we can all be. In Bhutan, guys get together to do archery and drink, just the same way guys get together here, in America, to watch baseball and drink. I understood those interactions and patterns. The next projects I’m thinking about are global projects.
Are we all dressing more alike because of the Internet?
I think we’re dressing in a more western way. But regionally people still dress very differently. Italians dress differently to the Germans, the Americans, the Japanese or the Africans. As people become more aware of the outside world, they become more proud of their space and proud of representing their space.
Your photos are not only about clothes and style. What are you looking for when you shoot?
I hope to get good portraits of people. Because fashion is something very natural to me, clothes are there to help tell the story, to give an idea of who that person is. That’s why I don’t really talk about the brands, if it’s new or old, if it’s expensive or cheap.
You rarely post about brands and you donít have links to the products or sponsored posts. Why not?
It’s not that important to me. I prefer to give people inspiration than to try selling them a jacket. I’m fine with having ads on the blog, but it has never affected the content. I photograph what I want to photograph. I’ve been smart enough to figure out how to make money in other ways, so I can keep the blog very clean.
Would having sponsored posts compromise your vision?
No. It would just be boring. I love jumping on my bike and looking for things to shoot. For me that’s the most fun. And I have much more power. People still believe what I say. I have much more power doing that than trying to sell the jacket I photographed just because I got paid to do it.
Many of the people you photograph are rich and wear expensive brands. Do you need to have a lot of money to be featured in The Sartorialist?
You don’t need money. My fashion knowledge is strong enough that it doesn’t need the validation from Vogue or some magazine to think that someone looks cool. Many times it doesn’t come from people with a lot of money, but from people who just put things together without thinking. That’s why I like to shoot kids who wear vintage (if they do it the right way, without looking like they’re in a costume or very representative of a certain period.) It challenges your eye.
Do you think about the way your work is received?
I think of my work, hopefully, in historical terms, what people will think of it 100 years from now. I hope they feel there’s a good cross section of the world through my eyes, what I saw, and the people I found interesting. I want them to look and wonder who that person is. What is that kind of life like? How is it to live that life? Do they work every day? What is their routine? What dreams do they have? And with blogs and social media we have a recording, for the first time in history, of what everyday people think, both the photographer and the audience.
Do you read the comments with curiosity?
Yes, of course. Just yesterday they were saying: “Oh, so many people smoking in your photos. I hate smoking.” In 100 years, maybe, people won’t even smoke. It will be very interesting for them to see what the discussion was right now about smoking, fur, about people being transgender. I show a lot people in the blog who are transgender, others who are androgynous and play with concepts of sexuality. Who know how these discussions will be seen in 100 years?
