FAMOUS Liverpool faces are constantly caught on camera, filling the pages of glossy magazines or newspaper sports sections. But what about the characters who anonymously set styles associated with the city? They are the focus of a new exhibition which turns the spotlight away from those who bask in it on a regular basis, and onto unknown subjects who contribute to a unique Liverpool look. Photographers Mark McNulty and Victoria Spofforth have captured what they describe as the city's "pavement catwalks" for Street Life: Liverpool in Fashion. And that includes everything from stereotypic tracksuits to city pinstripes and glammed up girls on the town. Mark, who hails from Walton but now lives in south Liverpool, says he had specific characters in mind for his portraits and knew exactly where to find them. "I didn't want to cover sub-culture, because it's very easy to photograph people who are very stylised," explains Mark. "I just wanted to concentrate on high street culture and to do that I had to get people who stood out in their own way - but not too much. "What I didn't want to say was: 'this is fashionable, this is very fashionable ...' At times I just wanted it to be quite normal and that was the hardest thing, finding people who weren't too out there." Mark, whose photographic CV includes everyone from Vivienne Westwood to Ricky Tomlinson, was approached to put together Street Life by Peppered Sprout Design Company. With the support of the Culture Company, they wanted a fashion photography exhibition for the National Conservation Centre. "I decided to take a street fashion approach, and they asked Victoria Spofforth - a photographer from Manchester - to add her slant to it. "Because she's not from Liverpool I think, in a brilliantly naive kind of way, she wandered around and picked people at random, whereas I specifically chose certain people in certain places." The resulting collection of 25 photographs, say the Conservation Centre, aims to illustrate how fashion can signal many things, from identity, to membership of a particular group or allegiance to a favourite football team. "But the exhibition is very non-judgemental," adds Mark. "I know the skater punk kids at the Pier Head will take the p*** out of the scallies in the tracksuits, and the scallies will laugh at the people in designer clothes. I didn't want to do that. I wanted people to be stood there in a very 'this is me, I got up this morning and put this on for a reason' kind of way. It was all about confidence, rather than being a fashion victim or not." Of course, admits Mark, there were certain preconceived images which really had to be included - and others which he vetoed. "There were two things that people said I had to do and that was tracksuits and pyjamas," he says. "But I ignored the last one because I don't think it's about fashion, I think it's about laziness. There was one that I said had to go in, though, and that was the three Saturday night girls. Liverpool has become so much a party city that you couldn't document its fashion and leave that element out. "It's always been the case, it's dressing up in the face of adversity. We may not have any money, but we don't want to look as if we haven't." Mark says his subjects, mostly, were flattered to be included. "Although in the end it does come down to the luck of the draw when you approach people," he laughs. "There can be a bit of paranoia and suspicion, even though not all of them can be dodgy, but at least half of the people I asked loved it. I think celebrity culture has seen to that - everyone wants to be famous and everyone wants their picture taken." * Street Life: Liverpool in Fashion is at the National Conservation Centre, Whitechapel, now until August 20. | 
