A Dutch Photographer Documents How We All Dress Like One Another

Dutch photographer Hans Eijkelboom spends more than 20 years documenting how we all dress like each other.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Turns out, we’re not as unique as we would like to believe.

Over the past two decades, conceptual photographer Hans Eijkelboom has traveled the world taking photos of people who share distinct similarities in how they dress. From New York and Paris to Amsterdam and Shanghai, the Dutch artist realized that everyday people tended to repeat specific style themes that are so banal they likely go unnoticed. That is until the duplicated outfits are placed side by side.

From all-denim getups and red sportswear jackets to flannel button-ups and half-naked rollerblading, Eijkelboom collected over 6,000 photos of normcore folks who looked and dressed almost identical. He then took those images and assembled them into an “anti-sartorial” book titled “People of the Twenty-First Century.”

Though slightly unsettling, the project is an intriguing illustration of consumerism and conformity throughout the world. At the end of the book, writer David Carrier shares an in-depth essay that focuses on the anthropological perspective of individuality, and how it is closely related to what one decides to wear.

Check out some of the photo grids included in “People of the Twenty-First Century” below. To learn more about the book and Eijkelboom's other projects, go to PhotoNotebooks.com.

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[via This Is Colossal]

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