The Swiss-born fashion blogger Yvan Rodic, a.k.a. Face Hunter, surveys fashion on a global scale in a new photographic travel diary out this week, Travels With Face Hunter: Street Style From Around the World. The book features visual eye candy similar to that of Rodic’s blog, but incorporates trends from over 30 different cities, cataloging the way real people express themselves through fashion. Rodic has risen from his humble beginnings photographing guests at Parisian parties to become one of the preeminent street-style photographers. In the introduction, he addresses the changing landscape of street style by contrasting the start of his blogging career—walking around the streets endlessly “like a flaneur” to find his subjects—with present day, where street-style photography has become a commercial circus of “‘creatively’ dressed people,” as Rodic puts it. In an attempt to broaden the field, he has decided to shift his focus to travel and cultural exploration. “It’s no longer about fashion people inspiring fashion people,” Rodic writes. “It’s about real life inspiring people—it’s about capturing sources of creative inspiration from people and cities around the world, which can be applied to any creative field, not just fashion.” His new volume, compiled over the course of one year of travel, includes 600 photos and commentary on cities across the globe, from Shanghai to Singapore, Chicago to Cairo, Bucharest to Baku. See the faces he hunted down.
(c) Yvan Rodic; Courtesy of Running Press/Perseus Books Group
Not so surprisingly, Rodic's book kicks off in New York—widely considered among fashion circles to be the premier style capital of the world, or as Rodic calls it, the capital of "loneliness and social excess." He grapples with why New Yorkers insist on doing everything alone, yet lauds the city for its crowdedness, diversity, and cutthroat nature. He writes: "New York is such a public, competitive city, and it seems like everyone is engaged in a constant fashion war with everyone else."
"The clichéd thing is to say that Istanbul is the crossroads where East meets West," Rodic writes. "It's partly true—you see a very Westernized lifestyle existing alongside a traditional, oriental culture." Much like New Yorkers, Turkish people care about how they dress and aren't afraid to take risks. Rodic calls the city "Face Hunter friendly."
Rodic admires Berlin's party atmosphere, artiness, and exoticism. He likens its nightlife to that of New York, going so far as to call it "Europe's city that never sleeps."
Madrid, according to Rodic, is fast becoming Spain's cultural and sartorial epicenter. His favorite section is Malasaña, a creative area of the city that draws comparisons to London's Camden and New York's East Village.
Warsaw, one of Rodic's new favorite European cities, has been taken over by a band of millennials who are bringing a fresh outlook and sense of style to the once Soviet-occupied city.
"To meet the nicest people on earth," Rodic writes, "You need to fly 24 hours from London." He admires Wellington just as much for its unpredictable weather as the New Zealanders' unique approach to style.
"Rio is one of the most sensual places I've been to," Rodic writes. "Even just looking at the people—the way that they move, how they show a lot of skin—you get the feeling that Brazilians have a very special relationship with the body, and with music and dance." This photo of a woman on a motorbike wearing a sleeveless blue print dress gives us a glimpse of the aforementioned sensuality.
(c) Yvan Rodic; Courtesy of Running Press/Perseus Books Group
As this photograph proves, Denmark's capital city has a creative and eccentric street culture that manifests itself in funky, warm-weather wears.
Long heralded as the city that birthed the fashion industry, Paris, Rodic writes, is paradoxical in that "appearance is not actually that important." According to him, Parisians place a higher value on intellectual achievements than personal style. Fashion Week tourism will spawn outrageous, daring ensembles, but on the other days of the calendar year, a simple getup like the one worn here will likely suffice.
Melbourne, Rodic writes, is a "major creative hub" in Australia. Its dwellers appreciate art and style—sometimes simulteously—as evidenced in this photograph.
