We pass hundreds (if not thousands) of people every day, be it in public transport, at work, or simply at the market; often how they are dressed or some particular detail of their outfit can catch our eye. For Stacey Baker, photo editor at The New York Times Magazine, that one detail is their legs.
On March 12th, 2013, Baker happened to see a pair of ‘dainty legs’ and the cut of a coat that fascinated her in the Waldorf-Astoria lobby. She took a picture and posted it to her personal Instagram (@stace_a_lace). Fast forward to three years later, and Baker has 78,300 (and counting!) followers on her Instagram, and her feed is purely centered around the legs she encounters in the streets of New York.
This July, her first book was published through Kehrer Verlag, a collection of photographs from her blog and Instagram entitled New York Legs. It is available on Amazon. The response to Baker’s feed has been intense and varied, with negative comments ranging from the various sex acts they want to perform on the women to body-shaming and slut-shaming to criticism of outfits. Baker has said previously that she is shocked by the negativity, but welcomes interesting discussions on what the women are wearing.
However, the comments are not always negative. People have called the series empowering to women, and for every negative commenter there is someone talking about how much they love the photo or the outfit, or how much they admire the woman’s stance.
Whenever Baker sees someone interesting enough to photograph on the street, she notes that the right kind of wall that is serendipitously present can make or break the photograph. While the feed remained stagnant for about a year, she has started posting again now that her book has come out.
While the popularity of blogs like Humans of New York or simple street fashion blogs is more than justified, Citilegs provides a refreshing spin on an already wonderful trend-and celebrates the diversity of women’s bodies in the process.
