Dutch artist Hans Eijkelboom likes to work with an unlikely medium: garments. With his new book, People of the Twenty-First Century, the artist documents 20 years (1993–2013) of fashion trends that were never meant to be popular. Since fashion street style photography has come to dictate trends via the Internet, there has never been a better time for an artist to explore what “anti-fashion” photography is.
However, Eijkelboom’s interests don’t lie within the capricious industry itself. Instead the artist tells VICE, “I’m interested in people and their desire to shape their identity with attributes.” In reference to his technique, the artist adds: “I went to a city, looked for the main street, and tried to find a mass theme, a particular piece of clothing or accessory. Then I began taking photographs. I never worked more than two hours on the same theme.”
The book contains pages filled with 12 photos of each curated “look” crammed onto a page. With photos of girls in bubble gum pink tops, men in Canadian suits (also known as ‘denim on denim’), and a plethora of guys donning the same orange hat (the color of the Dutch Royal Family), Eijkelboom chronicles the original fashion statement of “not trying”—an actual trend that some would now label as “normcore.”
Click through our slideshow and see some of the best (and scariest) anti-sartorialist fashion of the 21st century.
