Third Best Street Fashion
Shooting exceedingly vivid fashion photography in a style reminiscent of The Sartorialist and Face Hunter, Nadia and Adele of Third Best are capturing Melbourne’s street fashion from a fresh perspective. Giving a telling account of what’s hot right now, Third Best documents Melbourne’s fashion movement with a certain honesty, style and poise that will guarantee both longevity and authority in the street fashion trendspotting scene.
Feb 28th 2007
4:12 PM
Hi Andy,
I just couldn’t disagree more about this blog. I find it interesting as part of a cultural phenomenon, but I don’t think there’s anything particularly fresh about its perspective or vivid about its photography. And unlike The Sartorialist, it doesn’t explain why the outfits were chosen, and rather than seeking original clothes on many different sorts of people, it goes for the easy target of young fashion kids hanging out at St Jerome’s.
There’s more I’d add, but I plan to say more about this explosion of Melbourne street style blogs on my own blog.
Feb 28th 2007
5:58 PM
@Mel:
Interesting opinion on Third Best vs The Sartorialist, I wonder if commentary on chosen outfits is something Nadia and Adele will explore later? I’m always curious to hear the opinions of others, and your point about Third Best’s photography has really got me thinking. Why do I find it fresh and vivid? I guess because I’m not frequenting St Jerome’s and simiar Melbournian haunts, and like you’ve alluded to it’s somewhat of a nerve centre of Melbourne fashion, so I enjoy the ‘documentary’ of Melbourne street fashion Third Best is creating. For someone well aware of Melbourne’s scene I can appreciate the content may appear a little tired.
Looking forward to reading your post on the explosion of street style blogs, I’m sure it’ll make for interesting reading and discussion.
Mar 1st 2007
11:16 PM
“this explosion of Melbourne street style blogs”
Yeah, like where exactly?. Looking forward to you providing examples of the ‘explosion’.
It is what it is, Nadia and Adele are not trying to be The Sartorialist and why should they.
Not every one is a hip cat about town, jaded by their nights at St Jeromes. This is fresh and interesting to many people.
Mar 3rd 2007
10:49 PM
Who started the whole ’street fashion photo’ thing anyway? I suspect it was Street, a Japanese magazine that has been publishing pictures of trendy London, NY and Parisian gaijin in Japan since at least 2002. I’m interested to know what other Melbourne fashion blogs there are out there as well – mel, please give us some links.
In terms of St Jeromes trendoids, even if you don’t hang out there – as most people over 21 don’t – you know what these people are going to be wearing. What I’d like to see is some totally random fashion photography from places like Blackburn, Heidelberg, Clayton or Footscray mixed in amongst the dedicated followers of fashion. Why not adopt a Ransom-esque approach to fashion photography (aka mash-up) and inspire us all with a little juxtaposition?
Mar 5th 2007
12:33 PM
Hey, I think people are jumping the gun about thirdbest. Their plan is to shoot people of varied styles in many different locales. Their pics will be diverse and make for interesting social commentary.
Check out their first blog for the Age today , it shows they have a keen eye for interesting detail and style.
http://blogs.theage.com.au/thirdbest/archives/2007/03/post.html
Mar 5th 2007
9:08 PM
I agree with Lol B. Give them a break. Bloggers need time to grow.
Jul 18th 2007
12:08 AM
Third Best sucks! Sign the petition: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/thirdbestattheagesucks/
Aug 13th 2007
12:33 PM
Third best is a great blog, and the best thing we have going right now for Melbourne street fashion!
Unfortunately many of those who are criticising the girls are displaying their inability to effectively grasp the concept (not to mention airing your jaded and decrepit personalities to the world!). For example, all this b*llshit about the poor photographic quality is ridiculous, the girls are documenting street fashion, they have no interest in studio quality shots… and this supposed ‘horrible’ quality of photos never prevents the viewer from getting a decent look at what they subject is wearing.
As for the use of Grammar, drone on you backwater intellectuals, ‘har har har’ is not an example of poor Australian; it’s a commonly used form of expression on the internet by people of the girls generation – as a written form it is both comprehendible and harmless, and given that its an accepted form on the internet, as languages go, society will have to accept it is used by the majority of youth.
Your desperate pleas against it (particularly the petition) are pointless, this is a blog that is proving successful and serves a purpose in regards to documenting street fashion, too launch into tirades about how bad it is, is pathetic… find another cause with some merit, or better yet attempt you own blogs.
Aug 14th 2007
4:21 AM
Melbourne Fashion is dull. Lets be honest, without a dedicated following a collection can sink. With each aspiring designer trying to crack the big time, it takes more than an item of clothing that they believe is unique and unseen to make it in this fast paced world. Melbourne is a little incubator for talent but unfortunately lacks the style concious individual that will support these artisits. For years now it seems that not only Melbourne, but in fact Australia is a country obsessed with sticking with a look for more than one or two seasons, in fact maybe even longer. In a time when individualism is embraced and its more acceptable to think outside the box, we are still finding boutiques following the same strategies of the larger more profitable stores. And why we ask ourselves? Customer demand. Lack of individual style is dead and needs to be embraced more. How can someone be more individual when the current lines of the same style of times passed are all you can find? Think outside the box, support new designers and embrace the style thats is in your heart, not for which is hanging on a sale rack. In doing this Melbourne would become a lead runner in fashion, not a struggling runner up.
Aug 14th 2007
12:45 PM
Why feel the need to diss the fashion/street gear bloggers? Third Best do their thing and they do it well. Why diss them people? Do you go out in your own time and walk up to people/complete strangers and photograph them? Do you dedicate your own free time to something you enjoy, and then post it with the knowledge that someone is bound to shoot you down?
Give the kids a break. Yes we bloggers need time to grow. My blog is full of crap sometimes but I’m having some fun along the way. Surely you can respect that. You so uptight, chill bill.
I can’t believe there is a petition to express how much you hate a blog. Isn’t there enough hate in the world? What is your problem? Too much time on your hands?
Aug 27th 2007
11:17 PM
Street photos are a kind of currency. Not just culturally, but literally. Publishing street photos is always about an exchange (whether this involves creating a particular status for the publisher, selling a culture on to an audience or selling it to brands who use it as source material). Street photos are very very rarely about the ‘representation’ of a culture from the inside.
The people who hate Third Best are many and varied. Some hate the culture they think is being represented. These are the haters who are criticised frequently on the site (because they are easy to criticise). I am not part of that group. I hate Third Best because I recognise that it doesn’t represent a culture. All it represents is the sycophantic and random documentation of a Melbourne underground as perceived by the bloggers – wet-behind-the-ears fashion students from the south side who know little more about Melbourne’s scenes than the vistas at Jeromes.
They’re followers. And they photograph followers. This is not about ‘the joy of fashion and individual expression’. This should not be about giving them a chance - because the publication of street pics is a viciously-contested cultural terrain. And they need to start by acknowledging that. They are playing at representing a scene of which they have a vague, shot-in-the-dark understanding. Images representing any scene are defensible territory these days because they’re one of the only assets that haven’t been pre-sold to brands. Why would anyone want to give that up to two irritating, semi-literate recent immigrants from Chapel Street?