Phil Oh is Fashion’s #1 Street Style Photographer
Photo: Emma Arnold via Fashionista
Phil Oh is a photographer and blogger within the fashion industry that is best known for his photos and blog where he captures street style mostly from various fashion weeks. He even partners with Vogue’s website every fashion week as a contributor. When he first started doing photography, it was merely a hobby for him or something that he did in his spare time and did not expect to make taking photos to be a full career path for him. Now, he is one of the leading street style photographers in the fashion industry and has been able to hone his craft into pictures that highlight outfits and garments in the best way.
Supermodel Naomi Campbell at London Fashion Week 2023 Photo: Phil Oh via Vogue
Oh moved to New York for college, where he studied history at New York University. In college, he worked various jobs including writing a novel titled “Secrets of the Model Dorm'' and working at restaurants. He started his career as a street style photographer by chance; After he wrote his book, he found himself going with friends to fashion weeks and started taking photos so he could have something to do.
New York Fashion Week 2023 Street Style Photo: Phil Oh via Vogue
From there, he started his blog in 2006 called Street Peeper as a way to document and post his photos of outfits he found fun or interesting and gain recognition. With his blog, he took photos of not just celebrities but various people walking on the street while doing daily tasks. In an interview with Fashionista, he said, “I thought about doing a street style blog because at the time, there were a couple that existed that I knew of — obviously the Sartorialist, and one from Helsinki called Hel Looks; I already knew FRUiTS, the magazine about Tokyo street style. I thought, ‘Oh, there's already three street style blogs; if I make a fourth one, it's going to be really corny. There's already too many.’ I had multiple cities on one blog, and it would all be searchable by brand and by style, so if you click on a brand like Prada, you could see all the other people wearing Prada.”
New York Fashion Week Street Style Photo: Phil Oh via Vogue
He was then contacted and interviewed by Vogue to come in as a contributing photographer for their new website of the same name. In the same Fashionista interview, he said about the Vogue job, “I remember I went in for the interview — and this was just before Vogue.com relaunched as a separate entity — I didn't really take it too seriously because I never really read fashion magazines that much. I knew Vogue — I obviously knew the Vogue name — but I didn't really know what it meant….I started getting access to more things than I would have before, so I started neglecting my own blog — I don't even know if it's still up.”
Kylie Jenner during Paris Couture Week 2023 Photo: Phil Oh via Vogue
The way photographers capture clothing is always important in the industry, especially when it comes to street style. For every fashion week, people look at what people are wearing going in and out of fashion shows. Oh is a photographer that knows how to capture clothing in the best way. His camera capsules any color, silhouette or drape of a garment and is able to capture clothing in a beautiful way and make any outfit look appealing to the eye. This is what makes a good fashion photographer and this is why Phil Oh is the best at what he does and has been able to gain a solid audience every fashion week.
