Phil Oh’s 50 Favorite Street Style Photos of the Year

Phil Oh published 2,599 street style photos for Vogue this year, covering six ready-to-wear, menswear, and couture seasons. He no doubt took many, many thousands more that didn’t make the cut. We’re always curious how he narrows them all down; in his eyes, what makes a truly great street style photo? Oh says it’s not really about a person’s outfit; he’s more interested in their mood, or possibly what’s happening around them. “I like photos where people look like they’re having fun,” he says. “We know Fashion Week is a grind, and people want to look glamorous and chic. But to me, that can be kind of boring.”  
 We asked him to narrow down his year in street style to his very favorite photos, and most of them capture someone who’s smiling (or laughing, or treating herself to a slice of pizza, in Michelle Elie’s case). Other images capture someone in motion, so you can almost sense the split second Oh snapped the shutter. “I chose photos that capture a sense of what Fashion Week is like,” he says. “It’s one of the few times a year when fashion and the ‘real world’ have a brief intersection…where people walking by on the sidewalk can see what we consider to be commonplace. Like, ‘Oh, there’s a guy in a full Thom Browne look,’ or a person in full Rick Owens with a mohawk. Seeing [their reactions] reminds you that this is really interesting. It’s like seeing it through their eyes.”  
 Consider his photo of editors scooter-ing through Paris in Bottega Veneta, or the perfectly timed snap of Luke Jefferson Day walking through a crowd of Italian priests—those are just two examples in his edit of 50 favorites, below. Scroll through them all, and come back in January to see his latest coverage of the fall 2020 menswear shows.