As much as fashion thrives on the spotlight of slick fashion spreads and catwalks, there is something utterly captivating about the way real people wear real clothes.

Scott Schuman of “The Satorialist,” a wildly successful blog that is now a book, captures genuine style done for the pure joy of dressing.

He has an eye for distinctive style that has been hailed as a greater inspiration than the highly stylized, air-brushed and intricate fashion spreads of international style bibles.

The key is his refreshing images, mostly caught in broad daylight on the streets of whatever city he’s visiting from Australia to Japan and back.

But most of the images are from his beloved New York.

His blog attracts more than 125,000 visitors a day.

Each day he posts only one new image that he usually presents without commentary. It is his fans who supply commentary on everything from composition, facial features,  fingernail polish, pant hems and shoe combinations.

The result has a bit of a culture and style anthropological bent than the usual snide, unfriendly comments of anonymous strangers critiquing others on blogs.

He shoots everyone in the same unglamorously dignified style.

There are images of Giorgio Armani, Kanye West, Anna Wintour, Lauren Hutton and countless other notables, but his compositions are such that the celebrities are secondary to the image, the clothes, the artistry of his lens.

The famous are nestled side by side and on the same par as images of people he simply titles based on a color, a street cross or something they are wearing or doing.

A recent post features a homeless man (click the link to see him) and Scott, who rarely writes to explain his photos, had this to say:

Usually people in this man’s position have given up hope.

Maybe this gentleman has too, I don’t know, but he hasn’t given up his sense of self or his sense of expressing something about himself to the world. In my quick shot I had noticed his pale blue boots, what I hadn’t noticed at first were the matching blue socks, blue trimmed gloves, and blue framed glasses. This shot isn’t about fashion - but about someone who, while down on his luck, hasn’t lost his need to communicate and express himself through style.

Looking at him dressed like this makes me feel that in some way he hasn’t given in or given up.

Usually, his posts are not so poignant. He might just like the print of a tie against a window-pane suit or the unpredictable clash of plaids or someone using their blue mittens as a pocket square.

Whatever you think fashion is or isn’t at least one of his images will likely surprise and entrance you. There’s something to be celebrated about dressing fearlessly.

Schuman has said that he started his blog in order to document the people who inspired him from day-to-day and he accidentally inspired an international community of fashion lovers. His blog is often cited among the most respected design influencers.

His book was released last month by Penguin Books, 507 pg., $25.