‘Don’t Call Me Urban’ By Simon Wheatley

In a recently-published book titled “Don’t Call Me Urban,” photographer Simon Wheatley documents London’s Grime scene over a period of about ten years. Vice magazine follows-up with him and digs down a bit on the style worn by the people he photographed. Interestingly, Wheatley wasn’t impressed:

“I’m disappointed with what I saw of grime as fashion, it wasn’t very imaginative. That’s what I’ve always referred to when people compare grime to punk—punk was really something daring, whereas grime was very conformist, really. Not just in the sense of the sports corporations who’d give out their stuff to the main crews, but also most of the ‘designers’ who churn out t-shirts and hoodies with varying slogans or patterns. What about mixing it up a bit, you know? I’d like to see some proper African dress and stuff like that, rather than slavishly following the fashion code that came out of the United States.”

Read more from the interview here. See the cover for the book and one more image on the next page.