There’s no doubt about it: With the advent of street style blogs like The Sartorialist, Tommy Ton for Style.com, the Street Peeper and Altamira NYC, the landscape of Fashion Week has changed. With fashion editors’ and stylists’ outfits now being meticulously covered, what goes on off the runway has nearly eclipsed the collections.

Anyone who’s recently attended fashion week–or hell, anyone who’s been on the internet in the past year–will notice that the frenzy surrounding street style during fashion week has reached a fever pitch. Swarms of photographers crowd around the latest street style It-girl, angling (and sometimes shoving each other) to get the best picture. Unknowing tourists stop in their tracks, staring agape at the spectacle–some even start taking their own photos, thinking it must be a celebrity. Industry wannabes, dressed in over-the-top fashions, walk by “casually,” desperately hoping to catch the eye of a photographer.

Fashion week used to be a civilized industry event. Now it’s become a media circus, with both established editors, actresses and unknowns going to crazy lengths to get their fifteen minutes.Teen Vogue‘s Mary-Kate Steinmiller, who is street style fodder herself, told us, “I think everyone (yes, myself included) is guilty of what I like to call ‘peacocking’ and ‘baiting the razzi.’” Other editors have admitted to us that they’ve spent weeks prepping for the event, meticulously planning each outfit. One told us that she would change mid-day if she felt her outfit wasn’t up to snuff.

This deliberateness has surely had an effect on the authenticity of street style photography.

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