Brow Beat: Slate's Culture Blog

How To Get Shot By The Sartorialist

Fans of Scott Schuman's street style blog The Sartorialist—which posts elegant, color-saturated photographs of enviably chic individuals loitering on sidewalks from Moscow to Rio—should check out the Pipeline's spot-on guide to "getting shot by Scott." The blog presents a handy flow chart explaining which looks catch his eye. (If you're a man, be "old, rich and European"; if you're a woman, be "model pretty" or wear a "quirky hat".) The Pipeline leaves out a few Schuman staples—it also helps to be a crinkly-eyed great-aunt type or to have a charming, girlish ‘fro—but it effectively nails the range of styles he loves, which left me wondering: Is that range too narrow?

Reading the Pipeline's chart and flipping through the new Sartorialist book, due out from Penguin in August, I'm left once again with a feeling that's nagged at me in my years reading the blog: Schuman's photos are much more impressive individually than in aggregate. Gathered together, his subjects often seem rich and pampered, too many fashionistas wearing the same expensive and unwieldy shoes. But I can't help loving his work. I think that's because of Schuman's eye for facial expressions, for the people behind the clothes. He's attracted to a limited spectrum of looks, but he seems to have a generous lens, capable of finding the joy, wit, and candor in his subjects' eyes. You tend to feel you've met the people he shoots. Which is why I'll keep reading, even if it means I see men in rolled trousers and girls on bicycles again and again.

Photograph of Scott Schuman by Christopher Peterson