Monday, May 14, 2012

Jay McCarroll (Yes, that Jay McCarroll) and his Insane Sense of Color

Jay McCarroll with his recent work (including the bag). He gets the title of my first official style celebrity photo. Winner of Project Runway, Season 1, Jay is teaching and designing in Philly these days. He's now a regular Philly style icon, making him, of course, perfect photographic fodder for this blog. But my question for you, bloggers, is does celebrity matter? Is it important to you to feature style stars in your images? Why or why not?

7 comments:

  1. I luv his handbag and pendant necklace.

    As for featuring celebrities or not on personal fashion blogs is up to each bloggers discretion. I personally shy away from it because I feel like so many celebrities get enough limelight so I prefer to showcase real women and their take on fashion. Also let's face it most of us can't afford the expensive items celebrities wear so why cause yourself to struggle and covet their things.
    I try to be as frugal as possible when it comes to my wardrobe purchases so I personally relate to real girl's fashion but find and pull inspiration from celebs.

    Tye
    http://www.lagelledailydose.blogspot.com

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  2. Yeah, I'm into the handbag and necklace too. They fit in well with the rest of the stuff he had on display as well.

    Thanks for your thoughts on featuring celebrities. I can understand shying away from it and making "ordinary people" the stars of the blog. That's certainly the approach I've taken. But I can also understand the allure of capturing style stars.

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  3. I think you have to walk a fine line- to an extent, celebrities/models help bring the runway to the mainstream audience, because people see their favorite celeb wearing a certain style and want to emulate that. In that respect, celebrity coverage can be helpful. But I also agree that showcasing real people on the street, operating on a normal budget (ie, Dior doesn't send you a gown when you have an event to attend, ha) is more realistic and applicable.

    Thanks for reaching out, Brent. Good luck with the blog!

    -Ashley
    http://lerougestylo.blog.com

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  4. I feel I should first confess to the small wave of excitement that washed over me when I first noticed Jay in this entry... But squeeing aside, I guess my thought is that if part of your purpose in this project is documenting the street styles that speak to you in some way then celebrities are 'fair' game. Perhaps this perspective seems a little stolid, but I think it goes along with the question you posed about photographing fashion models. If you experience that instant moment of interest and desire to document that you and other SSB's have discussed, does it matter if that person is a celebrity or a model or a soccer mom?

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    1. That is a fair and quite reasonable argument, Candice. And just so you know, I have no intention of drawing some clear moral line around who's a sufficiently "real" person to photograph. Plus, I too had a small wave of excitement over meeting and photographing Jay. I'm a big Project Runway fan, for better or worse.

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  5. We definitely fell into the whole trap of wanting to shoot style stars, esp after attending our first fashion week. But since then we've come to realise that we don't want our blog to be about that, particularly when that style star isn't wearing something that we would normally be drawn to straight off the street. You're right, it's hard not to get star struck! And for the record we also have a Project Runway (Australian) designer on our blog! (we got him twice)

    Man, your blog is such procrastinator fodder!!! Will stop reading now..

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