It's a Hardback Life

Facehunter is the book version of the identically named blog from street style photographer Yvan Rodic. You would be forgiven for assuming the book is something more sinister based on that title, but it’s just a bunch of pictures of generally young, usually attractive folks wandering the streets of major cities around the world.

I’m a sucker for these books; I love to look at how other people dress, especially in a collection like this where the images are from all over the globe. I use them for inspiration and to see how people express themselves though an essentially silent medium. I also like to keep them around for a while and revisit them months or years later to see how my tastes have changed. I like the variety that the best style bloggers seek out, and Rodic has a good eye for the interesting without searching for people that seem to be wearing costumes. There are some noticeable trends in there- style influences style, after all- but overall it is rarely boring or too high fashion. And for a book published 5 years ago, nothing about it seems dated, which is saying something considering how the fashion lifecycle tends to work.

There is very little text here- just a one page introduction, a comment every 50 pages or so, and the location and/or event for each picture. The photography is nothing new- it’s street style blogging, which pretty much has its own particular, point-and-shoot aesthetic. This one isn’t any better or any worse than the others in my collection (both Street and Street View by Nylon magazine, Schulman’s The Sartorialist, I Love Your Style by Amanda Brooks, etc). Fun if you like this kind of stuff, pretty pointless if you don’t.