Copy Copy Copy (vol N*)

I’m a really big fan of the Exactitudes archive – a collection of street fashion photographs by Ari Versluis which shows us how – despite the illusion we all have of being different and unique – we dress like those around us.

Copying those around us doesn’t mean uniformity – it can also mean difference. Both within a group and beyond it.

And constant variation (because the point about what we where is that it is shaped by the changing options displayed by those around us)

Some fashions change slowly – particularly when associated with a group identity.

Some change slowly because they become habit – my father is constantly surprised that when he wears his shoes out after 5 years, he can’t just buy an identical replacement. Somethings change slowly because the products last so long (Barbour jackets is an obvious one) or are part of a social group’s unifrom. Meanwhile Dad’s got a slowly evolving selection of coloured cashmere sweaters…which do change relatively quickly.

The point being, in any population copying can create change fast and slow, variation and lack of variation, depending on what kind of copying it is and what the rest of the population are (seen to be) doing.

Postscript: Gareth Kay sent me this lovely set of photographs of how different occupants of the same block use identical spaces. Does anyone know of a larger version of this kind of thing?

*where N is a really large positive integer