When Sidney 'Siduations' Prawatyotin moved from New York to LA - leaving behind his life as a publicist - he decided he needed a new hobby. The 40-year-old headed West with his husband and was looking for something to pass the time.
There's a lot of traffic in LA.
'I thought if I'm going to be on my phone I might as well do something creative, so I started playing with these image editing apps whilst I was sat in road jams,' he tells ELLE. 'I should note, I was the passenger. I don't actually know how to drive!'
'A lot of my friends are in the fashion world so I was constantly seeing runway images or pictures of them in the latest looks on my Instagram feed and I thought it would be funny to see them in a regular…situation.'
The result? Siduations, the hilarious Instagram account that takes looks straight from the runway or street style and places them in a decidedly quotidien situations.
Balenciaga on the runway? Snooze. Balenciaga getting in caught in the subway door? Genius, and totally Siduations.
What started as fun way to communicate with friends (Chloe Sevigny was the first to repost his creation) and test out his photoshop skills soon turned into a light-hearted medicine much-needed during the ever-hectic AW17 fashion month. The fash pack were hooked, and it wasn't long before the world took note.
Inevitably the likes came rolling in. 'I started getting a little bit addicted to the likes, so I thought I better start posting stuff to a separate account so I wasn't annoying all of my friends.'
Sidney's most successful posts put the more unusual fashion items or ideas into a mundane situation and for this he affirms, 'fashion should be normal, it shouldn't be exclusive.'
The idea behind the account is not to make fun of the unwearability of some fashion items (although you would be hard pressed to find an occasion for a few pieces here and there) but to rejoice in the creativity of the industry, to make sure that fashion is fun, to talk about it and to challenge ourselves to look beyond the norm.
'I love fashion. I don't want designers to think I'm making fun of them. That isn't what this account is about. I just want to make fashion fun and real. Whenever I make an image I always think can this happen?
'It doesn't matter if it looks pretty or not, could someone actually get their coat stuck in the subway door or an elevator? Could a teacher wear this to a classroom? So that's my first rule parameter. My second one is don't try too hard,' he laughs, 'and don't think too hard about it.'
The zeitgiesty images are irresistibly relevant, whether it's Bernie Sanders in Balenciaga or Miu Miu hats on baby Mario. So where does he get the inspiration from? Sidney explains that it's not actually as painstakingly considered as you might have thought.
'I think I have a very photographic memory. Like my brain is just full of images that I've seen throughout my life, so when I see something new I can reference it back to something I have seen before.'
For fans, the success of the account is no surprise. A fresh, funny way of making fashion real? Of course you'd be on board. But Sidney is still a little overwhelmed by the attention.
'I keep thinking that my fifteen minutes are over and then I get another like fifteen seconds at it and I'm like oh gosh let me cherish this,' he says, rather sweetly.
Sometimes, it pays off to let your imagination run wild.
