Athletes - Ep. 8 - The sartorialist for aol on

(lively music) Scott: When I started my blog, it was with a simple idea travel the world searching for people whose style define who we are today. (lively music) My name is Scott Schuman and I am The Sartorialist. (piano music) I always think of New York as the city of Fifth Avenue, Park Avenue and people always dressed up, but the thing that I realized after living here for awhile is what a physical city it is. Every day, people really exercising out on the streets, skateboarders and runners and it's almost like an outdoor gymnasium. It creates its own visual that you see in New York, but you just don't really see anywhere else in the world. I happened to run into a young lady that I've shot before for the blog. She's doing something called "bridge running", where you get together in a group and they run across the bridges of New York. The view you can get from the bridge with the city laid out in front of you makes all the difference. It really makes it special. Female: One of my first real runs in New York was over the Manhattan Bridge into Brooklyn and back over the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan. Being able to step outside of the city and have that perspective and then come back in, there's nothing like it. Scott: If you're someone like me who is always looking for something new, really all the newest fabrics are usually made for sports. Fashion is the thing that's intuitive to me. I relate to people through clothing, but in sports clothes, it's the combination of form and function that's so inspiring to me. I'm on my bike a lot around the city and even though I don't really consider myself a big sports buff or a big athlete, it really got me kind of excited about playing sports again. One of the things I think is so cool is the creativity people use, they're using the jungle gym to do sit-ups and push-ups. It's one of the things that really makes New York, New York. When I saw these guys playing handball, I understood right away that this was something that I had to take photograph of. They're really modern gladiators. I mean, these guys are like sculptures, the controlled chaos between the beauty, the physicality. The difficult part when taking a photograph is that you don't capture the sound, the sound of that ball exploding against the wall. As I grew older, sports became a very solitary experience. One of the things I hadn't realized is how much I missed and enjoyed being on a team around other athletes. Even the idea of feeling guilty that, you know, your team is there, you know, running for me if I didn't feel like running. I don't do this, fine, it's not hurting anyone. Female: If you're out doing a run, everyone else wants to be doing it, too. When I met the bridge runners, the Black Roses, it really kind of changed my take on sports in the city. It wasn't about competition. It's perfect because they have such great comaradarie and I was intrigued about this idea of community around running. It's really like a little family. Female: Every run becomes a new experience. Scott: Yeah, that's something I think would be really cool, running with a group of like, kind of challenge and just go out, run over to an area known for a cultural kind of thing. I realized when you watch all these people doing sports around the city, there's such an acceptance of so many different kinds of people. It kind of felt like my photography. It was really a celebration of the physicality of life, a celebration of living; pushing your body and your mind. (lively piano music)