Philadelphia Street Style: Kelsey, 10th St

Kelsey is an illustrator and recent graduate from the University of the Arts. She described her style to me as "classy punk," to which I asked, "Does that mean you listen to a lot of punk?" "I used to," she answered, "but now I class it up a bit." Here, that translates into "some Navy style" jacket with an H&M scarf and a pair of cat-eye sunglasses by Ray-Ban. She has "no idea what the lower half is." 

Lately, she's been listening to a lot of "doom wop," the musical hybrid of doo wop and doom. I asked if she could name a band for me, since, frankly, I was having a hard time imagining what that would mean. She suggested Mister Heavenly. I just got through listening to a couple of their songs. I like them pretty well, but I'm still having trouble discerning any doo wop influence. 

By the way, if you want to check out Kelsey's illustration work, visit her website at www.kelseykrebs.com.

Philadelphia Street Style: Sofia, 17th St

My style radar, I've noticed, doesn't work as well in the fall. It gets mixed signals and an overload of messages. The more fashionable among us cover up many of their most ostentatious attributes when it gets cold out. And the less fashionable put on coats, pop their collars, spruce up their outfits with scarves and caps, take on, in other words, many of the embellishments one might otherwise associate with looking cool. There is a kind of equalizing that happens in the autumn, a balancing of opposites. You have to get pretty close to people to get some sense of how awesome they're going to look on camera. So I have to remind myself of a lesson I've learned dozens of times over while doing this project: don't pay too much attention to the clothes. Concentrate, instead, on body language, posture, and walk. I do some of that. But I also get easily seduced by color. You see so little of it this time of year that it really stands out when you do. That's what first caught my eye about Sofia.

Sofia has spent much of her life abroad, and the hat she picked up from a flea market in Nepal. It has something of a Himalayan feel to it. The pants come from an equally international, though decidedly less regionally specific, source: Zara. The sweater is vintage via Buffalo Exchange. The boots are Michael Kors. And the peacoat, well, we couldn't quite figure that out, even after looking at the tag.    

Peter, Walnut St, Philadelphia.