What street style?

October 6th Marks 10 years since the launch of the photo-sharing app that turned an entire generation into narcissistic amateur photographers, who when they weren't taking photos of their own reflection were sharing carefully curated visuals of their breakfast, lunch and brunch.

The ‘gram made the Kardashians Billionaires and made the humble Avocado the only thing that any self-respecting millennial will eat on toast, it also provided a business platform for thousands of people who once upon a time, when words were still fashionable, we called bloggers.

Now they're known as influencers, individuals who influence others using only digital photographs. Instagram is where fashion influencers thrive, social media democratised fashion in a way we could never have imagined, a decade ago when fashion editors dressed head to toe in black, were wrinkling their noses up at the jostling scrum of outrageously dressed bloggers, who turned up outside catwalk shows in the hope of being snapped by street style photographers, no one could have foreseen that many of them would now be self-appointed fashion editors of their own platforms. With hundreds of thousands of followers to whom they are the Oracle of all things fashion, commanding serious money to promote brands, their street style looks are a driving force for trend setting.

Fast forward to 2019 and it was they who were sitting pride of place at fashion week. 2020 is another story all together, September is when the fashion juggernaut usually travels from New York to Milan and London with its Grand Finale in Paris at the beginning of October.

This year Designers in New York opted for Virtual shows, while in London many such as Victoria Beckham, did more intimate socially distanced presentations for buyers & press, no fanfare, no huge set productions and no audience, the fashion took centre stage, the designers talked them through the collections, the fabric and the inspiration, which harked back to fashion presentations of old and feels right for the moment when sustainability and slow fashion is high on the agenda, but the low attendance means no street style photography for the first time in 15 years and what will that mean for trend prediction? I am sure Instagram will keep us updated.