Writing Inspiration: The Sartorialist
I’ve been meaning to blog about The Sartorialist for a while, a relatively new discovery for me (but probably incredibly familiar to thousands of others), The Sartorialist is a fashion blog that was recommended recently over at disdressed for it’s fashion inspiration. And it is a great fashion inspiration, the photos are beautiful and (going by my personal taste) about 99% of the clothes featured are beautiful too but what I am really excited about is what a writing inspiration The Sartorialist is. If you are the sort of writer that likes the aid of photos to help you develop your character ideas then I throughly recommend a visit over to The Sartorialist, as everyone Scott Schuman photographs looks like they’ve got a story, forget the clothes they’re wearing, ok don’t as clothes can give us hints and clues and ideas about character to, but forgetting the clothes they’re wearing for just a minute, if you look at Schuman’s subject’s faces, they are so full of expression (well most of them are), I get the same kick out of looking at The Sartorialist photos as I do looking at vintage photos, you can see story there to.
There is one slight drawback to using The Sartorialist as writing inspiration, if your story is about badly dressed, zero confidence characters, it’s not going to be much help. The majority of the people photographed are on the streets of Milan and New York but take photos such as today’s (sorry I can’t seem to link to separate blog posts, so it’s a link to the photo instead) of a sweet 16 year old who dresses so differently from an average 16 year old and has such an air of confidence, can you just imagine the adventures she gets up to. Or this couple, what are they going to get up to? Or this girl, what does she do for a living? Or these two, what sort of life have they led? (All photo links from July 2010 The Sartorialist, I thoroughly recommend you go there to read the text).
PS There’s also a book
